Of Quests and Magic
by piratesswriter
Summary: When Princess Ari and Lady Marielle uncover a plot, it's up to them to save the kingdom from a wicked king. Toss in a reluctant warlock, a group of brazen street performers, and a shy nobleman, and what do you have? A tale of comedy, romance, and magic.
1. Chapter One

Abandoning Children Script

**Chapter One**

**--Ariana--**

"You should try… kissing it," Marielle suggested dubiously, staring at the large frog in my hands. The frog _ribbeted_ rather loudly and just looked at me with moist black eyes the size of buttons. I looked around once again to make sure we were alone – I had no intention of letting Lady Hattie's daughter, Bridgette, catch me in this position. Marielle and I were sitting cross-legged on the shore of a small pond covered in lily pads and teeming with insects, and just so happened to be the one holding a frog close to my face ("It's so… _slimy_!" Marielle had shuddered, refusing to touch it).

The sun was sinking low in the sky, and that meant that most of the people in the castle were taking their late afternoon nap. Due to my role as only-princess-being-saved-for-a-rich-marriage, I was supposed to be taking the most naps of all… but I'd convinced Marielle to sneak out of my room and go to the walled gardens, my favorite place in the palace. It was a glorious summer afternoon, and the light streaming down through the trees lit the grass in patches and bounced off the water of the pond. Goldfish, their orange scales flashing golden in the light, swirled close to us as if wondering what we were preparing to do. The answer to that question was simple: Marielle and I wanted to see if we could prove that a princess kissing a frog would turn said frog into a prince.

My lady-in-waiting, Marielle – who adored the old tales and would have sold her soul to have her own library full of them – had wondered aloud to me that morning after breakfast if it were true. I had responded that I didn't know, and of course Marielle had spent the rest of the day concocting the perfect plan of discovering what would happen. I'd gone along with it, just thinking of sneaking out and not taking my nap; I'd been in a rebellious sort of mood. I just hadn't thought about having to actually _kiss_ the frog.

"Marielle, I think this is _just_ a frog," I replied, glancing once at her and then back at the amphibian in my hands. The frog croaked and stared at me. I could see no human understanding in those eyes – if he _was_ a prince, then he was a prince of frogs and nothing else. "Marielle, I'm just going to – _aeeek_!" I shrieked as the frog in my hands gave a mighty leap and landed not in the water, but smack on top of Marielle's head.

Her gray-green eyes went wide, the blood drained out of her face, and she froze. "Marielle?" I whispered cautiously, and she still didn't move. Under different circumstances, I might have laughed – my (admittedly, rather vain) lady-in-waiting was sitting cross-legged in the dirt with a green frog perched stickily on top of her pale hair, not even daring to breathe. It seemed to me that even the winds had gone still.

And then, of course, it happened: the frog croaked.

The frog's croak was loud enough in itself, but it was Marielle's scream that shattered the silence. She leapt to her feet, jumping up and down and shrieking incoherently, all while the poor frog held on for dear life. I shot up as well, aware that Marielle's screams were echoing off the walls in the garden and that nobody was supposed to be in them. I added my voice to the din, frantically trying to shut Marielle up before the head gardener (an old man whose fierce brandishing of various garden tools was frightening) found out.

In desperation, I reached out a hand and frantically slapped the frog off of her head, causing it to fly through the air and land in the water with a final, resounding _plop_. The terrified frog soon scrambled underneath a lily pad, obviously horrified by his ordeal.

Marielle's shrieks grew quieter, and she was still, her muscles so tense she was nearly vibrating.

"Marielle, you could have gotten –" I started, trying and failing not to laugh, my shoulders shaking. "I mean, you could have –" There was a moment in which we were both laughing, and suddenly, my lady's-in-waiting eyes expanded to the size of saucers. She ducked her head instantly, her face still pink from the combination of laughter and embarrassment, and she dropped a quick curtsy and mumbled an apology. "Marielle, it's fine, you don't have to…" I began before realizing that Marielle was indeed not talking to me. Dread began to swirl in the pit of my stomach, and I turned around to find my mother… and her entourage of courtiers, ladies-in-waiting, footmen, and, of course, my father. As usual, he was standing at the back looking around amiably, but that didn't detract from my sudden panic.

My mother, Hyacinth, is the official Queen of Marquia, and she is overly concerned (in my opinion) about what princesses should or shouldn't do. High on her list of things princesses shouldn't do was actually befriending your lady-in-waiting, especially if either of her parents has ever been involved in something morally reprehensible. Since Marielle was the daughter of Sir Ian, who was an outspoken, borderline treasonous, man, I was supposed to have ignored her except for when I needed something. Unfortunately for Mother, Marielle had been my constant companion since I was seven and she was six. When I turned twelve and no longer needed a nurse, it was only natural that I would request that Marielle be my lady-in-waiting. It was traditional for me to have someone older than I, to show me the ways of the court, but I preferred having a friend to an instructor.

"Ariana Bethanne Kellyn Marie," Mother spoke in a high, frustrated tone, "_what_ are you doing?"

Of course at that moment, I became aware of the fact that the entourage included Bridgette, and she was smirking at me in a way that let me know that if I told the truth I'd never hear the end of it.

"Um," I began, swallowing nervously and glancing at Marielle for support. She caught my eye for half a second and then shrugged before focusing her gaze intensely on the line of ants creeping across the sand. "We were –"

"Because I have been looking everywhere for you?" my mother cut me off, the scowl growing on her face. "Your dress is torn, you're in the courtyard shrieking – you did not, I assume, take your afternoon nap, did you?"

"Um. No, Mother, but –" I did not stop talking of my own free will – it was the shock of seeing a smile replace the frown on Mother's face that shut my trap. Glancing at my hem, I realized that the dress _was_ torn; I'd need to change as soon as possible. But Mother looked happy about it…? I blinked, and swallowed hard. Why was she smiling like that?

"You see, my dear Ariana, I – your father – _we_ have finally found you a husband." She had stumbled over the words for a moment, I noted. That wasn't so unusual. Mother was the one that who _really_ ran things in the kingdom, and she was good at it – Father simply wasn't cut out to be a king. He was too kind, too softhearted, to actually do his job. Kind rulers were better than dictators, of course, but pushovers did not make for good kings.

"You… found me a husband?" I repeated dumbly, without really recognizing the impact of my words. And then it hit me, a bucket of rocks raining down on top of my head: _I was getting married_.

"Yes, I have! Your suitor is King Braxton of Libonessen, and he has informed us that he will be here by tomorrow! I've already alerted the cooks and servants. Ariana, what do you say to such a proposal?" Mother's voice rose with excitement, and the courtiers hummed their approval. I could see Father smiling, and the smile dropped clean off of Bridgette's face. Mother looked positively thrilled, and even Marielle was grinning widely at me, unabashed.

A marriage proposal like this was something I had looked forward to my whole life. I had been raised with the knowledge that someday, a prince or king was going to marry me. I would have to live somewhere else, away from my family. I would have to adjust to different customs and cultures, and maybe even learn another language. But it had never bothered me. I was a good princess; I followed most of my mother's rules, and I did what I was told. When the suitors began to come, I was about thirteen, and now that I was sixteen not much had changed. Father and Mother did not tell me about them unless it was serious, and a suitor coming to stay meant that this was almost definite.

All my life, I'd been preparing for this. I was ready. So what else could I say?

"Yes," I breathed, finally making the decision that would forever change my life.

**Hey, all! I'm back, this time with a new story that I swear I will update frequently. It's nearly done as it is. I hope you enjoyed it, and please leave a review! I'd love to get some feedback on this piece so I know what to fix. Thanks for reading!**


	2. Chapter Two

Hey, all

**Hey, all! Just a short little author note before the story starts. Marielle and Ariana switch off POV; Ariana narrates odd chapters and Marielle narrates even ones.**

Chapter Two:

Marielle

I really (and I mean _really_) hate frogs.

It has nothing to do with the frogs themselves – I'm sure that, if a frog could talk, they might be pleasant and entertaining. It's just that real frogs _can't_ talk, and not much except for magic is going to change that fact. The way they just stare at you with glistening, soulless eyes… it's more than a little disturbing, after all. And of course, there's the slime. Ugh! As I had told the princess earlier, there is nothing nastier than a stinking, slimy, unpleasantly _moist_ green bullfrog, especially when he happens to be sliming YOUR HEAD.

Maybe I overreacted a bit, but really, why shouldn't I have screamed? I don't like frogs; I like my hair… the two just don't mix. As to the princess and marriage, however… a rather strange leap in my thought process, but that was how it happened.

Ariana (or Ari, as she preferred to be called) was seemed sort of weakened by the news of her engagement. After her mother's announcement, she went back to her chambers and locked the doors. This, of course, is the universal sign for _leave me alone_, and so I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting by the lake with Viola, one of the housemaids, and chatting with her. Well, to be honest, it was me talking to Viola, and Viola nodding and occasionally saying a two-or-three-letter word in response. It wasn't uncommon for me to speak paragraphs every time I opened my mouth, and I talked faster than most people in the castle – correction; I talk faster than _all_ people in the castle. Consequently, I was spending the afternoon talking to myself while Viola's eyes glazed over and she let my words slip in one ear and out the other. Finally, as the sun went down, Viola shook herself awake and told me she was going to go eat.

It was a beautiful afternoon, I noted, reluctantly slipping back into the castle. I glanced over my shoulder at the hill and saw Viola sneaking off towards the stables instead of the dining hall, and smiled. It was a well-known piece of gossip that Viola had fallen for Sean, the rock-headed stable hand who was completely oblivious to her existence. According to Bridgette, she'd been watching and flirting for weeks to no avail.

I tilted my face up toward the beautiful summer sky just before I slipped into the kitchens, gazing into the clouds. What little light was left in the sky was fading into blackness, and I was responsible for bringing Ari her supper when it was dark outside. None of the other servants knew about my friendship with Ari, and we planned to keep it that way. While it wasn't _illegal_ to be friends with one of a higher (or lower) rank, it was simply… frowned upon, and, as the queen would splutter, simply _not done_. Thinking about the queen made me think of Ariana's fiancé, and I sighed. My parents were planning my future marriage as well – probably the only thing they never fought about – and I knew that I was going to have about as little say as Ari when they told me. It was often that I envied Viola's freedom; as a noble, I had no real right to choose with whom I'd spend the rest of my life. Fortunately, most parents made good matches, and everyone was happy. Most of the time.

"I need the princess's supper, please," I singsonged, skipping into the kitchens from the vegetable gardens. Flora, the head cook, glared at me from the stove, where she was supervising the unlucky kitchen workers scrubbing, and pointed with a wooden spoon over to the counter. There was a pile of dirty dishes as high as my waist (not very high, admittedly) in the sink, and I could already see some of Flora's apprentices meticulously kneading bread dough for the next day. Trying not to remember that I hadn't eaten since breakfast, I bit my tongue and leaned over to pick up the tray on the counter. Of course, at the moment the kitchen fell silent, my stomach let out a huge roar.

"What'll it be for her highness this evening, Lady? Or does her ladyship feel it beneath her to address a worker such as myself?" Jemima, one of the apprentices, trilled disdainfully as she pounded the dough beneath her fists. Jemima. Ugh. I grimaced, looking down she wouldn't see. The girl had hated me since she had first come to work here, and one of her hideous concoctions had made me sick. As this is not an easy feat, she had nearly lost her position, and ever since, Jemima had wanted to serve _me_ for dinner along with her signature veal. I winced at the memory and turned to face her. She was nearly as tall as Flora and much taller than I was, and her impressive set of biceps was enough to make me nervous.

"Whatever it is you have prepared for her, you filthy little witch," I snapped saucily, picking up one of the plates full of leftover roasted liver and hurling it at her face so that it shattered and broke all over the floor. And Jemima screamed obscenities about both the king and queen and was kicked out of the palace and never bothered me again for the rest of her miserable life, most of which she spent starving in a gutter and eating rats for survival.

Or not. I bit back a retort and mumbled and stuttered my way through an answer, and picked up the gleaming metal tray that contained Ari's supper off the counter. Nodding to the kitchen servants, I quickly exited the kitchens, my head bent. As soon as I had turned the corner and was safely alone in the courtyard, I put the tray on the floor and clapped a hand to my lips. I held the words back – various curses and obscenities that had no place in my mouth. Jemima had no right to speak to me that way. Furious, I bit my lips to stop them from trembling with suppressed rage. I had always heard that it did no good to bottle up your emotions (I confess – I've been known to periodically explode when it gets too much), but if you lived in a world where showing too much emotion could be dangerous, then that advice meant nothing.

It took me three staircases, four corridors, and six drafty rooms to march through before I finally ended up outside the door to Ari's suite of rooms, shifting the cold tray from hand to hand. The hall was carpeted with a rich red rug, and a bored page was just lighting the sconces lining the corridor. He cast a momentary glance at me, and then looked away. "Princess?" I called tentatively, knocking on the door. "It's me. Marielle."

There was a silence, and then the sound of footsteps. I backed up as I heard the lock turn, and smiled brightly as Ari opened the door.

Her face was pale, but she gave me a tired smile in return. "Come in."

"I love your chamber, Ari," I commented as soon as the door was shut, though I had seen it several times before. "It's beautiful." And it was. The stone walls were covered with tapestries and paintings, and the curtain-framed windows were always open in the summer. The skies were clear that night, and I could see every star through the three windows she had open. Ari's bed, covered with a beautiful blanket made of the finest materials, was propped up against the wall facing the windows and heaped with all the gowns she had ever owned. The marble fireplace stayed empty until fall, and directly across from it was a chaise lounge, strewn with more clothes and pieces of jewelry – I recognized, cringing inwardly, the diamond necklace she'd received for her birthday entangled in a rope of pearls. A chandelier lit with tiny candles flickered over our heads, and several more lanterns dotted the room, adding to the color. The mirror on the wall next to the closet reflected these lights so that, if one were unfortunate enough to glance too often at it, one would find oneself temporarily blinded.

I would know, as this happened to me on a weekly basis.

"I have been thinking, Marielle." Ariana said quietly, taking the tray from my hands and placing it on her bedside table. Hurrying forward, I shoved the dresses back and waited until she was seated to sit down next to her. Even if we were friends, my station was important as well and I had to remember that. Ari had grown up with this system and undoubtedly never noticed it.

"About what, Ari?" I asked lightly, lifting the lid and placing it upside down so that I could see what was for supper. Much to my delight and surprise, I could see that it was tomato soup and bacon sandwiches – two of my favorite things, plus there was another little tureen that looked as though it might contain some sort of dessert.

"About… _marriage_." The way Ariana said it, it was like we were discussing the torture chambers in the dungeons instead of being chained to one person for a lifetime.

"What about it?" I asked rather crossly as I picked up one of the sandwiches with one hand and peeked inside the dessert tureen with the other. No, it was only more soup.

"I'm excited, but… I'm nervous as well. It's like I'm ready for the wedding itself… but not for the years after that." She squeezed one hand with the other absently, forehead puckered in a little frown. Marriage was not a topic I wanted to discuss – not with Ari, not with my parents (oh, dear sweet Lord, certainly not my parents), not with anybody. And guilty as I felt for being insensitive, I wanted to avoid this conversation as much as possible.

"You know that this isn't definite," I pointed out thickly through a mouthful of bacon, lettuce, and toast. It was terribly unladylike behavior, but when Ari and I were alone, table manners didn't matter as much.

"I do, but…" she heaved a sigh. "It will be, though. _You_ must know that the suitors have never come to stay at the castle before." I poured the tea into two cups, and raised one to my lips. Slurping it quickly, I thought this over.

"No, they haven't. But I'm sure that the king will be… _lovely_," I stated emphatically, pleased with my new favorite word.

"Physically, or emotionally?" she teased, turning up the corner of her mouth in a half-smile. And there was the Ari I knew.

"Both," I giggled, polishing off the last of my sandwich contentedly. "Don't worry about it, Ari. Everything will be fine."

--

The rest of the evening passed slowly as Ari chatted with me and I put away the clothes we had both taken out and untangled each and every necklace until they were perfect. Finally, when one of the maids had taken away the trays for our dinner, Ari dressed for bed behind an ornate screen.

"Marielle?" Ari asked from behind the screen as I handed her the nightdress.

"Yes, Ariana?"

"Do you think he'll like me?" she asked nervously, stepping out from behind the screen and taking slow, tentative steps over to her vanity.

"Of course he'll like you," I said instantly. Ari was kind. A little proud, even a bit of a flirt, but she was kind and had a good heart. Really, she was hard to dislike. "Don't worry about that. Now, here, if you can undo your hair, I'll brush it for you," I promised impulsively… even though this was more for my benefit than hers.

"All right," Ariana reached up to the crown of braids that I had woven around her head that morning and pulled at the ribbon, sending soft black waves slowly out of their prison. I loved Ari's hair – more than my own, as odd as that sounds. Ariana had not cut her hair more than a few inches for eight years, and the result was that she had hair black as ebony that fell down to her knees. In the summertime, when it was wet, she let it hang out a window after washing it, and in the winter she lay down in front of a fire. Though most people in the castle didn't like to bathe, I begged to differ – I couldn't stand not feeling clean, and some of that had rubbed off onto my best friend.

We chatted and laughed while I ran the comb through her hair and pulled it back into the braids again for her to sleep in, but the atmosphere was different that night; I could sense that her mind was elsewhere,. As I wound the final ribbon around the end of the plait, Ariana met my eyes in the mirror of her vanity. What an odd contrast we made, I thought absent-mindedly, my fingers automatically finishing the bow. There was me, with lightly tanned skin and straw-colored curls, and Ariana, with soft black hair and a pale, heart-shaped face. As I surveyed her tired expression, I wondered how she could feel ready for her wedding. We were nearly the same age, and I doubted that I would have answered "yes" to the question if I had been given a choice.

"Do you think that I will make a good queen, Marielle?" she asked suddenly, biting her lip as soon as she'd finished speaking.

"Of course you will," came the autonomous response once again. "He'll be lovely, Ariana, don't worry." I stood back and let her stand up. She moved slowly towards her bed, and sat down before looking at me again.

"Will you be coming with me?" she asked in a rush, and I bit my own lip, wishing that I didn't have to answer. I knew the answer to that as well as she did, but I wasn't going to tell the princess that the only way I could was if Braxton let me.

"I promise you this, Princess," I spoke deliberately, standing by her door. "I will do everything in my power to ensure that I can come to your wedding."

"Thank you. And good night, lady-in-waiting," she teased, blowing out the candle by her bed with a puff of air. "See how ridiculous the titles sound?"  
I laughed, and gave a curtsy. "Good night, Ariana. Sleep well."

"And you." Ari settled back and curled up into a ball, her arms circling around one of her favorite pillow as her eyes closed.

I quietly extinguished the lanterns in her room and exited in silence, my thoughts on the stories of princesses who had married far-off kings. They had loved their husbands, they had loved their children, but aside from that, they had shown no emotion at all.

**And… that's the end of chapter two! Please leave me some feedback; thanks to Lumiere, Ellsbeta, and Bingo7 for reviewing.**


	3. Chapter Three

**Hello, everyone! This is a rewrite of chapter three, but I would recommend that you read it, as some crucial plot points are explained here. I know I haven't updated in a while, but I wanted to make it perfect! Thanks for your patience.**

**Chapter Three**

**Ariana**

I stood outside the door to the banquet hall, my shaking palm on the carved wood. The King Braxton had arrived around noon, riding on a sleek black horse and accompanied by his chief advisor. The only glimpse of my future husband was the one that I had caught from my tower as he strode up to the palace doors, and though I was not afraid of _him_, I was still anxious. "Mother," I whispered suddenly as she came up behind me, "will I like him?"

"Of course you will," came the brusque, and, rather expected, answer. Even if I didn't, I knew that there was nothing I could do about it now. I glanced around for Marielle, but she was already gone – seated, probably, at the table for the engagement feast we were to give. My parents and I were supposed to enter through the enormous double doors of the hall and sweep down the grand marble staircase, showcasing ourselves as first-class royals… though I had to admit that I wasn't nearly as thrilled about that idea as my mother was. She got a kick out of feeling like she was better than the others. For me, showing off had started to lose its appeal when I figured out that people liked me less, not more, if I bragged about my title – at four years of age.

I came back to the here and now as the trumpets began to sound. I bit my lip and removed my hand from the door as I gave myself a mental shake. I was a princess; taught by the finest tutors, given the best education in all of Marquia. I was not going to let a silly public 

appearance rattle my composure. As I frequently did, I pictured myself as a traveling player, putting on an act for the world to see. To my subjects, I was not Ari, but Her Royal Highness the Princess Ariana, and I would have to act like it. I used the trick my old nurse had taught me to calm myself – count to ten as you walk, and keep your mind focused on the numbers.

"Time to enter, Ariana, dear," Father whispered as two of the guards opened the door. Beaming jovially, he stepped into the enormous room, holding my mother's arm. She smiled and nodded at the crowd, and I could just see the gossip about whichever unfortunate lady happened to catch her eye circulating in her brain. I came last, my pale blue gown trailing on the floor behind me, and my ridiculous hair not far behind. _One_. I kept my eyes trained on the tapestry of the unicorn on the wall above the high table, trying not to look at the faces of the courtiers. _Two_.

Our banquet hall is made of stone, as is typical, I suppose, but with several brightly colored tapestries and paintings adorning the walls so that it seems less stern. The floor is stone as well, an embroidered rug underneath the high table. My father's hounds often wait underneath the tables for scraps, but there was no sign of them tonight – and (_three_) I assumed that the cooks had kept them in the kitchen so that they would not disturb the guests. _Four_. The aforementioned guests were seated by rank, with the nobles closest to the high table, and the commoners sat near the back of the hall, looking excited and pleased to be invited to such a celebration. Honestly, I was a little surprised – not unpleasantly – that they'd actually been invited. _Five._

_Six_. My right foot connected with the stone floor at the same time my eyes connected with those of my fiancé, and I involuntarily gave a shudder. _Seven. _Not because my shoe was so 

uncomfortable that I could feel the smooth ground through the soles (though it was), but because those eyes were cold, distant. _Eight_. The same color as the churning gray clouds before a storm over the forest, they were green and purple and gray all at the same time, and carrying the same kind of repressed fury and power. _Nine. _There was no warmth in the king's face – and I knew in that instant that he would never love me._ Ten_.

Slowly, as though my legs had turned to iron, I made my way to the chair next to King Braxton's and sank into it, head down, eyes on the gold-rimmed plate before me. My father stood and began to drone about how pleased they were to make an alliance with Libonessen via my marriage, but I didn't hear him. Still shaken, I was furtively stealing glances at my future husband.

Stony-faced, his tanned skin still bore traces of dust from travel, and he stared not at my father, but straight ahead, just as I had done. His hands were strong, powerful, and he clenched and then relaxed them as I sat down. Braxton was neatly shaven, and his shoulder-length dark hair was pulled back like a true gentlemen's, but I could not shake the sinister feeling that there was something about him that just wasn't quite right.

"And now, let us begin our feast!" Father finished, sitting down firmly upon his chair. Next to Father, I noted as I glanced up, was Braxton's traveling companion and advisor – a quiet, middle-aged man dressed in black. I waited until he, Father and Mother had dipped their fingers in the bowl of water before I did, and sat back as the servants began to dish out the appetizers and the hall filled with idle chatter. I was being silly, I told myself, a silly little princess who knows nothing and jumps to conclusions about things she doesn't understand. Of course King 

Braxton and I would be happy together. After all, my parents would never do anything that might hurt me.

Still, the fact that Braxton and I dined in silence did not escape me, and even as I found Marielle after the meal, the cold look in his eyes haunted my thoughts.

--

The coldness of my fi – of _Braxton's_ eyes (I could not yet bring myself to say_ fiancé_) kept me skittish and quiet throughout the next few weeks. Though my parents provided lavish entertainment, as Mother hoped to truly impress him, he had yet to even smile. He was somber throughout the performances of singers and actors, of storytellers and dancers – and as soon as the act was over, Braxton merely stated that it had been pleasant in his somber monotone. Mother took this as a challenge and began, ridiculously, to hold more and more extravagant festivities – balls were planned for our official engagement party, fairs for the citizens were arranged for the sake of the citizens. Still, the king remained cool and remote, though he did politely express his gratitude for our hospitality. He hardly spoke to me or my mother, or any woman for that matter, preferring to converse my father or one or two of the courtiers, and, of course, with his taciturn advisor Lord Griffyn.

His cold silence made me tense and edgy, and although we exchanged pleasantries, Braxton did not seem to be made for conversation. Though he spoke perfect Irentian, he often spoke only to Lord Griffyn in their language, a strange dialect in a different alphabet than our own. It had been my least favorite to learn, and even after four years of study I had not yet mastered it. Though the king did not typically speak it in front of me, I often noticed him standing with his advisor in an inconspicuous corner, speaking seriously in a hushed voice. 

Clearly, he was not shy; however, it wasn't until the day the council met that I actually heard my fiancé speak more than three sentences.

The Marquian council was small – consisting of six noblemen and three commoners, as well as the king and his heir, it helped to, for the most part, keep a balance between our people. I had been considered a part of the council since I was thirteen, though this was more to do with tradition than respect for my intellect or political insight. Most of the time, I just sat in the back and tried not to fall asleep – the most common thing we discussed was peasants' land disputes with the Irentians, and, as _fascinating_ as that is, I had better things to think about.

Four centuries ago, Marquia had seceded from its controlling mother country, Irenta, back when the former held several colonies between us and ignored our troubles with the indigenous people already living here. Our choice to secede resulted in a twenty-year, bloody civil war that ultimately guaranteed our freedom, but at a high cost: we had become the enemy of one of the most powerful nations in the world. As Irenta gained more land, and the gap between us narrowed, the fights broke out again. We made peace and became allies around one hundred and twenty years before hand, but it was during that period that the army became central to our government. Upon his twentieth birthday, every young man had (and still _has_) to serve two years in the military. It was whispered of us that our adventurous ancestors had become barbaric warriors; though we tell the schoolchildren only good things, our first kings (being brothers), were the most fearsome barbarians of all. I had heard it said that that same, hot-blooded ferocity flowed in the veins of the royal line even to that day. I felt that the statement was ridiculous; I'd never wished to harm anyone, though I could if I wanted to. When it became clear that Mother was not going to have any more children, I'd been trained to wield a sword, as well as learned several basic forms of martial arts. My nurse had pushed it, stating that she believed I needed to 

be able to protect myself; father had sanctioned, stating that it made for a powerful queen; Mother had only sat back and sulked because she couldn't deny the request. Being only eight years old, I had thought nothing of the whole situation.

I filed these thoughts away as I entered my father's study, where the council members had already gathered. Each one got to their feet, with the exception of Marielle's father, Sir Ian. One of my father's closest friends, he knew me almost as well as my father did and, therefore, did not need to rise in my presence. The fact that he did not believe in such things did not matter to me. "Good afternoon," I greeted them, sweeping a quick curtsy before crossing the room. My father's study is filled with bookshelves, desks, and several comfortable armchairs – so you see my dilemma in struggling not to fall asleep. Still, the room is filled with light from several windows that all look out over our city. While not as reputable as some, our capital does carry the prestige of the castle, as well as the collection of wealthy merchants and nobles who live there. The marketplace was set up directly below one of the windows, and, whenever I could get away with it, I would sit on the sill and watch the tiny people down below me, busy with whatever was happening in their lives.

Today, however, was apparently not one of them. The council members looked rather perplexed, with the commoners chafing in their council-meeting finery and whispering to one another. Apparently, I was able to decipher from the whispers, my fiancé had called the meeting to state a proposal. What it was, however, I had no idea, though I was sure that whatever Braxton's plan was, it was either incredibly dull or pertaining to my dowry. Still, I wondered what, exactly, he was going to say as I settled into my chair.

I sat for a moment before Father, King Braxton, and Lord Griffyn entered, one after the other, at which I hastily rose to my feet, curtsying as the rest of the council bowed ceremoniously. The council was not usually so formal; I supposed they wanted Braxton to understand the sense of propriety embodied here in Marquia.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen," my father greeted everyone, settling behind his desk. "Is everyone present?"

"Yes, sire," Sir Ian, the council secretary, nodded, taking a quick glance around the room, his eyes halting momentarily on Braxton. "The date is the twenty-first of June, in the year…" as Sir Ian continued with the formalities, I was watching my fiancé as he stared at the sheaf of papers in his hands. He wasn't nervous – the papers weren't shaking, at any rate – but something was different around him. Maybe it was the way he carried himself suddenly: strong, and with a confidence that bordered on cockiness. It was odd to see him this way, though I felt a sudden burst of hope that he would speak and behave in the same manner once we were married; I had been worried about how I would bear a husband who never spoke to me. Distantly, I heard Sir Ian state my name; "Present," I answered absently, caught up in the ecstasy of that one little hope.

"Then, we are all officially here. Your highness, you may begin when you feel ready." Sir Ian nodded at Braxton, who, giving a brief nod, went to stand before the semicircle of chairs.

"Once I have married the princess," he began, and my heart sank; his voice was as detached as ever, "then not only will I have access to governing both Libonessen and Marquia, but I will consider both countries my home." Braxton stopped for a moment, and shuffled the papers in his hands before looking straight at me.

"Libonessen has sunk into a depression," he continued, his eyes boring into my head. "The end to the slave trade over fifty years ago has finally caused an economical crisis that we cannot recover alone; our crops are failing, and there is hardly enough food for any of my citizens. During his reign, my grandfather squandered the royal coffers, and, therefore, we are next to destitute. However," Braxton announced, a sudden gleam in his eye, "I have come to believe that the Bright Isles would be a wonderful asset to Marquia."

There was a collective intake of breath. The Bright Isles had once been a colony of Irenta, and now… well, to be honest, I wasn't sure what it was now. Though it had its own government, an oligarchy composed of the governors of each island, the Bright Isles ultimately took orders from Irenta. If King Braxton was proposing what I thought he was…

"Are you suggesting that we seize land from our friends and neighbors? Irenta is our ally," Lord Curie, a large courtier with a long beard and booming voice, demanded suddenly. "As well as the most powerful kingdom in the world."

"You have a weak alliance formed only to end senseless bloodshed; the Marquian military is clearly superior to that of any other nation," Braxton stated firmly. "Irenta mismanages its colonies; you know that. The profits of the sugarcane plantations would boost both Libonessen and Marquia to the top two nations in the world."

"That is dangerous," Father said plainly, shaking his head. "A clever idea, but it is never wise to cross friends, especially one as powerful as Irenta is. I will have to say that I do not agree, though when you and Ari _do_ marry, we will do all we can to stabilize Libonessen." Braxton looked, for only a brief moment, as if he wanted to argue, but his face quickly reverted back to the solemn expression it typically held as he nodded once.

"All in favor of his highness's proposal?" Sir Ian called out formally, though he looked as though he wanted to spit. Marielle and her father both stressed the importance of loyalty, and I could see that Sir Ian was appalled by the idea of backstabbing.

One hand went up – the youngest council member aside from myself, one of the commoners – but the rest stayed down, and I was quiet as the meeting was dismissed. I certainly had no intention of agreeing, and I realized, panic rising, that I was supposed to marry the man who would condemn a thousand soldiers to death on the grounds that we would leap from being the fourth most influential nation to being the first? I caught his eye as we stood up to leave, and, without warning, my fiancé smiled for the first time since I'd met him. It was a cold grin, one I supposed was meant to be friendly, but, without warning, its chill sent shivers down my spine.

**Okay, so I rewrote this chapter because I realized that a) I desperately needed to because it was horrible, and b) it was more in keeping with the rest of the plot. I hope you enjoyed it! Read and review.**


	4. Chapter Four

**Hey, everyone! Thanks so much to Clar the Pirate for her review; it simply made my day! And you are right about the amount of "just"s I use – it does need to be worked on. Thanks to Maraudersbanana and Bingo7 for reviewing chapter three, and again (because I didn't do it last time), thanks to Ellsbeta for giving me the necessary suggestions for chapter three. This update took a while because I had to rewrite this chapter to keep up with the previous one… thanks for reading! Please review.**

**Chapter Four:**

**Marielle**

While Ariana was sitting – bored out of her skull, I thought idly – through a council meeting, I was in the library, working at my desk. The papers spread around me, though, were not for my schoolwork – by the time I was thirteen, I had already learned everything that a young lady was supposed to know (or was capable of knowing, if you listened to my governess), and spent my days exploring other interests, namely reading and writing.

Though I missed my mother and older brother, it was in these respects that I was extraordinarily grateful I lived with my father in the castle instead of with them in the manor back home. Though the futures of noblewomen were limited; I expected to grow up properly, marry a rich and influential lord, and then have children. This, of course, left very little room for adventure – something I could have found on my own back in the country – but, with my father's encouragement, I had been inventing stories and quests since I was old enough to read. Mother claimed that it was said encouragement that made me into such a creative (and obvious) liar when I was little. My love for writing about adventure, looking back, was really definitely preferable to the real thing, but at the time, I didn't know that. I only knew that if I wrote a good enough story, then my father had promised to bind it and place it on a shelf in the library. I'd wanted my own stories on the already full bookshelves that lined the walls in the library since I was young, and so spent most of my free time writing.

Today, however, was not a writing day (and, honestly, not a happy day). My mother had wanted to be sure that I had been well-educated at court, and, consequently, she wrote each letter to me in one of the three languages I was supposed to speak. Mother was gifted in tongues, and she was fluent in over seven languages herself; she had worked as an interpreter when she lived at court, long before she had to marry my father and leave.

With I sigh, I placed the letter back in its neat envelope and pulled a fresh piece of stationary over towards me. This last letter I'd gotten from her wasn't in Irentian, our language, but in Duendese – the goblin tongue. Even though the goblins typically take great care to learn human language, they expect the same respect from other nations that they, themselves, give. I pulled over a Duendese dictionary, groaning as I did. I _hated_ looking up these translations; Duendese had so many verb tenses!

Muttering to myself in a mishmash of Irentian and Duendese, depending on when I actually knew the words I wanted to say, I was hunched over the letter when Ariana appeared next to me. "I have to speak with you," she announced, dragging a nearby armchair over to where I sat.

"What do you need, Princess?" I asked, putting down the pen and looking up.

"No, I don't need anything," she shook her head and bit her lip, and I realized how pale she was. "I just…"

"Are you all right? What happened? Father didn't say anything at the meeting, did he? Oh, because he really means no harm, he has a lot of ideas, that's all, and –" She held up her hand, and I fell silent, irritated even though I knew that we had to act this way. Bridgette had started hovering around the entrance, and so Ari had had to become a princess. In a way, it was to save me, too – while she was talking to me, Bridgette would not dare to interrupt. I smiled, raising a hand briefly to receive her glare. She didn't like to read, and I had never once seen her come so close to my own personal sanctuary.

"I was at the council meeting," she began as Bridgette left again, rather miffed, "and King Braxton offered a proposal." As she spoke, my eyes grew wide at the approaching figure behind her, and I raised a hand to point while trying not to be rude. "He wants us to go to war with Irenta. Us! After all the years of damage and bloodshed, he wants us to fight! Can you believe it? How foolish… you're shaking your head, Marielle. Why are you…?" she stopped, realizing my implications, and as she did, her face flushed before turning white as the paper beneath my hands.

"Good afternoon, Princess," King Braxton said softly as Ariana slowly turned around. The corners of his mouth arched up in what I assumed was some sort of smile as he took one of her hands and raised it to his lips before dropping it. "I trust you did not agree with my proposal."

"In all honesty, my lord… I did not," Ariana admitted, still pale. I didn't move. I'd always been a good judge of character, and I didn't trust him. "I believe in preserving the alliance between Irenta and Marquia; however, as Father said, as queen of Libonessen, I will do everything in my power to stabilize your country."

"Of course, Princess. Would you care to hear it a second time? Perhaps you can see reason."

"I highly doubt my opinion will change a second, especially when my father and his advisors agreed with me," Ariana said coolly, smiling out of the corner of her mouth. Reflexively, I tried to subtly shift away from her. Whenever she smiled that way, I knew she was _really_ angry. Angry as in get-out-of-the-way-because-I-think-she's-about-to-start-throwing-things-angry.

"I apologize, Princess." Braxton stated before turning his cold eyes on me. "Move," he commanded, looking at me the way my mother's cat looked at its insolent kittens. I blinked.

"I beg your pardon?" Ari demanded before I could react.

"I told your servant girl to move; I left a paper at that desk just a few hours ago." I blinked. This was _my_ desk, and there were only two keys. I had one, and the librarian had the other. I glanced at where he stood, poring over an old tome. His face was red, and he kept sneaking looks over at the scene. I gritted my teeth.

"This 'servant girl' is my lady-in-waiting," Ariana hissed coldly as color rushed back into her cheeks. I was torn between my pride and Braxton's command – I wanted to get out of his way, but what would that look like to Ariana? What would that look like to Father?

"And therefore a servant, who must bow to command of a visiting monarch." My stomach clenched, and my jaw dropped; _how dare he?_ Thanks to what he had just said, King Braxton had a better chance of being killed by Bridgette's small, yapping dog than of me leaving the desk while he had a chance at getting into it. Still, I recognized that, as his equal (well, nearer than I was, at any rate), this was Ariana's battle, and that Braxton had probably threatened or intimidated the poor librarian.

"No, I am afraid I will have to contradict you," Ari rose suddenly, gripping the back of her armchair. "This _servant_ is a highborn lady whose father is the second most influential man at court – Sir Ian, my father, the _king's_, closest advisor. His daughter is mine."

There was a moment of silence in which, filled with disgust, I noticed Braxton's expression change from shocked (at Ari's audacity?) to angry to contrite, and he bowed. "I apologize, milady," he said softly to me. "I must ask you to leave the desk so that I may gather the things I left behind."

"And I," I said on a whim, fueled by sudden anger at _all the nerve_, "will have to respectfully decline. You see, this is _my_ desk; I own it, in actuality. _You_ may return for your paper in just a few hours, once I have decided to leave." _Marielle,_ my rational head thought suddenly as I instantly regretted my rash words, _what have you done? _My child's heart, in keeping with my pride, answered back, _finally told a filthy son of a pig what you thought of him._

"Very well," the king said evenly, turning his head as if he had heard someone call his name. And so he had, I noticed as I turned my head – Ariana's mother, the queen, was beckoning him over from the library doors.

"I assume she has more fabulous festivities to throw for his majesty," Ari hissed snidely as he disappeared through the doors. "We wouldn't want his royal highness to be bored, now, would we?" It wasn't a question, but in my irritated state of mind, I considered answering, just to be contrary.

"Thank you, Ari," I sighed instead, shutting the books and gathering my papers together. The clock in the corner had just chimed four o'clock; naptime, and today I was actually tired. I'd finish the letter another time. "I'm glad that you said… what you did."

"Oh, so am I!" she assured me, shuddering as we stood and began to walk towards the doors. "He… he wants us to go to war with Irenta. After over a century of peace! He wants us to gain control of the Bright Isles to finance his kingdom –"

"They _are_ in a depression," I pulled the fact from who-knows-where, still grouchy.

"– but really, Marielle? Would you have me sanction the invasion of our neighbor? Would you have me sanction the senseless slaughter of thousands of our soldiers? Young men like Johan?" I flinched, and turned towards her with an angry face. _Leave my brother out of this_. "And I would have to, you know," Ariana continued ruthlessly, "because he'll be my husband. I have to obey him. I'll be their queen." She stopped abruptly in the hallway, and I was suddenly grateful it was naptime; there was silence in the corridors. "_Queen_. I'll be married to him." Ariana had begun to shiver, and she turned a frightened face towards me. "I'll be _married_ to him." The implications had not yet set in, apparently, I realized, moving towards her with concern, the jab at my older brother almost forgotten.

"I'm sure his highness will be a wonderful husband," I assured her, wondering when I had ever been less sure about anything in my life. "Maybe he just hadn't thought this whole proposal through."

"I don't know. Why else would he –" she stopped abruptly, looking at the load of books in my arms. "Did you pick up my shawl?" she asked suddenly, biting her lip as if trying to remember. I sighed; caught up in the conversation, I had indeed forgotten to grab the garment from where Ari had placed it by the desk.

"Oh, no… I apologize. I'll just run back and get it; you go on ahead." Ari nodded, and I turned around to head back to the library. As I heard her footsteps receding, I began to worry. King Braxton didn't seem to be someone who was used to not getting his way – even the words of an experienced leader hadn't swayed him from his views, judging by the fact that he'd remarked on his proposal to Ari. A son of a pig, I'd growled to myself as he left the library, and now I realized how apt this was. Now, _I_ was stubborn; I knew I was stubborn. I drove my nurse half-crazy by refusing to pick up my toys even if I couldn't walk through the room, just to prove I didn't need to; when Mother warned me about taking too much at dinner, I'd eat everything on my plate and then get seconds, even if it made me sick. Mother called me tenacious; my nurse called me pigheaded. Braxton had to be worse. Ten times worse, if he was so used to getting his way.

I hurried through the library, back to my desk; the librarian nodded once at me as he passed by, blinking through lopsided spectacles, and I smiled back. Cornelius. I'd known him for years; we'd become strange friends in all the time I spent in his domain. He'd given me a desk for my birthday three years ago, and in return he said I gave him company. The library was usually a lonely place, I admitted to myself as I grabbed Ari's shawl from the floor and started to leave. But with His Majesty, King Braxton –

I stopped dead, a thought suddenly occurring to me; what exactly was in the desk that the king had wanted to find? It was unlikely that he had needed it for his proposal, as he'd done it without the paper, and even though my mind suggested a million other reasons, I couldn't help opening the desk and searching for the paper that didn't belong in my mess. Shoving aside characters, half-finished letters, and thousands of ideas that hadn't come to fruition, I finally came up with what appeared to be a half-finished letter, written in Braxton's native language. This one happened to be a language I had studied on my own, at Mother's insistence – my aunt had been born in Libonessen. I couldn't speak it nearly as well as she could, and I was hopeless when it came to understanding the accent, but I could read the language almost as well as I could Irentian. Well, I thought as I started to put the letter back, curiosity killed the cat.

But then, my eyes fell on a particular word, one that, when used appropriately, could either mean "to laugh hysterically" (literally, the verb suggested madness), or "to kill." And as my stomach clenched, I realized that I highly doubted that anyone would talk about laughing hysterically in a private letter on royal stationary. Rapidly, I grabbed both the shawl and letter, locked the desk, and ducked behind the nearest bookcase. My heart pounding, I frantically scanned the letter, praying that it was wrong. Praying that somehow, it wasn't saying what I thought it was.

I was wrong.


	5. Chapter Five

**Hey, all! Just a quickly posted chapter, on account of the fact that I have a Chemistry midterm tomorrow. I hope you like it! Please leave feedback.**

**Chapter Five**

**Ariana**

"Princess?" the muffled sound, coming from behind the door, was desperate and breathless, but I paid the tone no heed; Marielle _had_ been gone for over ten minutes, and it was highly probable that she'd discovered a colony of frogs that needed expunging or something. Still, I jerked my head up as Marielle burst into my bedchamber, flapping a piece of parchment around with one hand. Her eyes were wild, her face was flushed; something was wrong. "What's amiss?" I asked, standing and taking the paper from her as she started to babble frantically about something that was unintelligible, due to the string of words in what sounded like mixed-up dialects. Finally, she managed to blurt:

"No, Ariana, that's not my paper. It's… it's the king's. Braxton's. He… he said…"

"I can't read this, anyway," I shrugged, concerned, as I handed the paper back to Marielle, bemused. It was clearly in her cramped, left-handed writing (which I _still_ found unintelligible), but what had she said about my fiancé? Her breath was coming in short, sharp gasps, and her hands were shaking. "Calm down," I urged quickly, picking up the teacup one of the maids had brought for me. "Drink this. You'll feel much better."

"No, but thank you." Marielle lifted the mysterious piece of parchment once again and shut her eyes; she appeared to be giving herself a mental shake. "I mean, yes, please," she took the cup, sipped it, and put it down again. "I found a letter from the King Braxton to… well, um, to a man named Georg… anyway, the letter wasn't in Irentian; it was in their language, and I translated it –"

"You never told me you spoke their tongue," I stated, feeling rather injured. She was fluent? It could have served us so well the past few weeks! In response, however, Marielle only blinked and looked at me as if the idea had never occurred to her.

"I don't really _speak_ it; I only can read it," she said hastily after a moment. "Ariana, you must listen to me. Listen, and then tell your father; do something, do _anything_. But first I need your full attention." She was beginning to frighten me, so I nodded without saying another word. She inhaled sharply, and then, her voice shaking, Marielle began to read the words that the original writer had penned.

I do not wish to repeat exactly what the letter said – in short, it was written to one of the finest assassins the writer (or I, for that matter) had ever heard of. Said writer had promised him triple the usual fee, paid a year in advance, plus a bonus when the deed was actually done. The bonus, the writer promised, was a large sum of gold – plus complete immunity from any crimes committed, past or future. And the target? The writer's wife, though he would send for the assassin when the deed was to be completed.

The writer was His Royal Highness, the High King Braxton of Libonessen.

The target was me.

Marielle was on the verge of hysterics by the time she finished the letter, hyperventilating and gibbering on about how sorry she was and what would we do and where would we go and how would we ever survive because we certainly wouldn't, that was for sure, with a homicidal maniac after us and… Her voice got higher and higher as she paced, until finally she just shut her mouth and plopped down on the floor, as if her legs had suddenly become too weak to hold her. She stayed that way for several minutes; it was as if her vision had turned inward, though I barely noticed after the first moment or two.

I was in shock, reading and rereading the letter. Dead – he wanted me _dead_. My future husband wanted me dead. I did not know anyone who had actually married for love, with the exception of Lady Hattie's son, who'd married a common girl, but _murder_? My head clear due to the lack of emotion, I tried to take advantage of the deadened shock by trying to understand the sequence of events that would occur if the deed was carried out. I knew and trusted Marielle; I did not know and had never trusted either King Braxton or his adviser. So the letter, signed by Braxton (she'd insisted that it was), had to be true and was one he intended to send. I knew that we were to be married within the month, and immediately after that was when he had planned to invade the Bright Isles. So, assuming we spent four years – more or less – in a war, then we would have complete control over both the islands and my country. When the Marquian prince or princess preparing to take the throne turns twenty, the reigning monarchs traditionally abdicate. As I was the sole heir, and as Braxton had a kingdom to rule as well, I would be the more powerful Marquian ruler. If I were to die, then my husband would have joint control with the next in line – a special arrangement made only if the monarch has another country to rule as well… I did not know the original ruling. However, if I were to have a son… my son would become king, no matter his age. And who better to act as regent than his dear father?

"What should I do?" I finally finished after having outlined my suspicions to my lady-in-waiting, who had turned into a statue and did not respond. Still shocked, it was all I could do not to feel irritated at her. The very moment I needed her most, and she had gone to pieces! "Say something!" I commanded after a long silence, during which the realization of the enormity of the situation had hit.

"Magician!" she said dully, mechanically. "We could call a magician and have him turned into a frog."

"Are you trying to make a joke? Because this really is not the time for humor!" I snapped, standing and passing a hand over my face. "I can't tell my father, because he'd be in danger." There was a beat of silence in which my heart stuttered and I realized the truth. "They'd all be in danger, do you understand? We can't tell anyone! Ever!"

"What do you propose we do?" Marielle cried suddenly, getting to her feet. "Have the guards trail us everywhere? Carry weapons for protection? You're the priority, Princess, but now I know as well, and I'm sure the king knows that I looked at the letter. We're both in danger. But I know one thing – you can't marry him. You can't go anywhere near him."

"In case you haven't noticed, he's lived here for the past month and a half!" I fired back, blazing with anger and fear. "How would I do that?"

"You could just leave!" Marielle shouted, and then, realizing how loud she was, shrank back and sat down. I stopped, however, and looked at her.

"Leave…" I knew where to go. "Marielle, please gather some of the maids and begin packing. We're going to the duchess's."

***

Her Grace the Duchess Ivette of Landworth was my father's sister, and my favorite aunt. While she _looked_ tall, stately, and lovely, she also had a streak of mischief that always made her visits fun. It was her idea to switch Mother's perfectly-ordered wardrobe with my own little gowns the night before a ball when I was ten, and she'd been the one behind letting one of Father's most unruly hounds loose in the Dining Hall during a formal banquet. It was fortunate my parents loved her. Going to her home in the country would not only get me away from King Braxton, but it would also give me time to think. Still, I spent a sleepless night pacing my room, my dagger clenched tightly in one fist. Fear coursed through me like blood through my veins, and I was having trouble keeping my head clear. I waited until the sun had finally risen before waking the snoring Marielle and telling her that I was going to go and see my parents. With any luck, we would have left before nightfall.

My mother was suspicious at first, suggesting that King Braxton accompany us, but quickly agreed when I pointed out how improper it would look to the court. At that, she prepared a letter to her sister-in-law explaining our stay while Marielle packed. I'd tried to keep it silent, telling no one by Marielle's father and my own, but unfortunately for both of us, Mother insisted that I tell Braxton. Even in advance, I thought that Marielle should add that to her list of awkward conversations over the years.

Accompanied by a suitable chaperone (my father), I entered Braxton's chambers. The fire was dead, though the room was neat, and he stared at me as I entered. My hands, encased in brown gloves, were shaking, though I tried not to let my nervousness betray me. "Hello, my lord," I greeted him, sinking into a curtsey, my eyes trained on a spot on the carpet.

"My princess," Braxton took my hand, though I hadn't offered it, and pressed his lips to my knuckles. As I rose, his eyes flashed into mine, and in that instant, I was sure: _he knew_. "Your mother informed me that you wished to speak with me."

"She did?" my voice came out as a squeak. I cleared my throat, shook my head, and started again. "Excuse me. I… I was not aware that she spoke to you."

He just stared at me, his eyes somehow cold and inflamed with a strange spark at the same time.

I squared my shoulders and continued. "I will be departing before our wedding, to visit her grace the Duchess Ivette at Landworth. My lady-in-waiting, Lady Marielle, will be accompanying me."

"And is there no need for me?" he asked, a seemingly casual, calculating smile playing about his lips. I blanched at his words, suddenly stuck. _How do I respond to that?_ I thought desperately, twirling a loose strand of hair nervously around one finger. Abruptly, Braxton's laugh rang out. I realized quickly that it was supposed to be a joke and joined in, my muscles tensing instead of relaxing. My father, standing awkwardly by the door, was looking more and more uncomfortable by the frosty atmosphere by the second, so I decided to speed things up.

"Well, anyhow," I continued, making my best effort not to let my voice tremble, "we will be leaving tonight. I wished to tell you before we departed, so… I will see you shortly before we wed. My lord," I added hastily, dropping another curtsy. I stifled as gasp as Braxton, however, leaned down to pull me into a standing position.

"You will soon be my queen, my princess," he said in a near whisper, though I caught every word. "Perhaps you should study more of our traditions in Libonessen. It is not part of our customs that the queen should lower herself before her husband." At this, my temper flared, and I inhaled sharply.

"Then, _m_y_ lord_, I suppose that it is fitting that we are yet to be married."

"But we will be," came the light answer, accompanied by another smug, knowing look. "Shortly, princess, yes?"

Unnerved, I turned to leave as my father exited quickly. Father was sort of oblivious to the world around him, but he could definitely tell the atmosphere of a room; he had always been sensitive to that, which made for a good figurehead. As I've said before, everyone knew that my mother really ruled. Turning for the door, I stifled a sudden noise as I was grabbed by the shoulders and spun back around. Staggering, I backed against the wall as Braxton came toward me. My heart was pounding; I could hear my pulse throbbing in my temples. I looked away as he kneeled next to me and began to whisper in my ear, dragging a hand across my face in a way that sent chills down my spine, "_I know that you know. And I promise that, should you play your part perfectly, your life may be spared._"

I couldn't help it; I panicked. Almost reflexively, I found the strength in my arms and dug my fingernails into his face to shove him back, twisting my head away from him to scramble for the door. A quiet curse escaped Braxton's lips as he wiped at the blood (_I'd drawn blood?_) filling the indentations. I stood up and wiped a hand across my face, pulling the door open at the same time. Father was still standing outside, looking vaguely surprised to see me and confused at the same time.

"Thank you for the warning about the bandits, Princess," he said loudly for Father's benefit. "I will be sure to ready myself for tomorrow; accompanying you on horseback will be an honor. Goodbye."

The door slammed shut, and I took my father's arm. "Father, I don't want him to come," I said quietly, forcing myself to sound confident though I was trembling.

"I'll speak to your mother. I love you, my dear," Father kissed me lightly on the forehead, and I smiled truly for the first time that day. "I'll speak to your mother" was what Father had always told me every time he let me get my way; after all, we both knew that Mother wasn't going to agree to anything.

"I love you too, Father. I will see you in a few weeks." As I embraced him, I felt a tear spill down one cheek; was I crying already? I sniffed quickly and wiped it away as I let go.

"Ar – Princess!" Marielle, rounding the corner, rushed toward me, looking flustered as usual. "They've readied the –" she began as I gave her a _look_; Father still stood there, smiling benevolently. "I mean," she continued in an undertone, "they've readied the carriages, and I have your things right here. The groom is waiting."

I nodded once, and wiped my arm across my face once again. And, even much later, I couldn't seem to be able to rid myself of the cold feeling of my fiancé's skin against my own.


	6. Chapter Six

**Hey, all! So this is chapter six. I just want to say a big thank you to Emily for reviewing chapter five! Yep, Braxton is quite a creeper. And I love getting reviews! It just made my day. So… read on, darlings!**

**Chapter Six:**

**Marielle**

The carriage ride was surprisingly quiet. _Too quiet_, I thought several times, peeking from my book over to the princess. She was staring out the window at the rain, turning the small, thin blade over her hands. Her old nurse had given the weapon to her on her twelfth birthday, so that she would never be without protection. Personally, I'd always thought the nurse was paranoid, but I was glad Ari had the dagger now. The way she moved, quickly and monotonously, made it clear that her mind was elsewhere – probably back at the castle with her fiancé. I shuddered, remembering the cold, chilling tone of King Braxton's voice the night before. _Dead. He wants us all dead._

I turned back to my book, listening to the steady drum of rain on the carriage roof and hoping against hope that it wouldn't leak, and trying to forget the fact that Braxton had stamped both Ariana and I with impending doom. _Pay attention to the book_, I commanded myself silently, willing my mind to go to the land of fairy tales where evil kings never triumphed and everyone always ended up happy. Traveling by carriage meant that we would arrive in a few hours, at least, but I'd made sure to bring my favorite stories. Since I was little, I'd obsessed over the tales of wicked queens, stupider-than-thou princesses, and, once in a while, pure-hearted heroes who wanted to save their homes for unselfish reasons. As most people had, I'd fallen in love with the world where everyone lived happily ever after – shortly after realizing that no such place existed.

"Princess?" I said tentatively, unable to keep the silence and glancing over at Ariana for the second time. The atmosphere between us was different than it had been last night, when we'd heard the king's plot; Ari had been frightened, but still determined. Something had happened between those moments and this one. "Ari?" I tried again. She didn't answer. "Is everything all right? You seem… tense."

"I'm fine, thank you, Marielle. Don't worry about it." She turned to look out the window, tracing with her finger the water droplets that snaked down the glass. I got the hint.

"If you're sure." I tried to go back to my book, but the bumpy carriage ride was giving me a headache and anyway the story was awful. In the tale, the evil lady-in-waiting forces the princess to become a servant. When the princess's betrothed finds out, he drags the lady-in-waiting through the streets in a barrel stuck with nails until she dies. Pleasant. Why it that, when compared to royalty, nobles and peasants are always wicked in fairy tales?

I ended up shutting my eyes and curling up on the upholstery as if I was going to take a nap. I didn't sleep; I never do in carriages, and anyway, I wanted to stay awake to keep an eye on Ari. But, after all, wasn't that why we were going to the duchess's? To relax, and get away from him? I had to keep that in mind, I chastised myself as I settled into the upholstery. We would think of a way to escape. The situation still felt surreal, though, I thought. Two days ago, I'd just been myself, chatting casually with my friends, and now I was running for my life what had – and then automatically, I jerked to my feet, stumbling as the carriage went over a bump, and crashed to the floor as the carriage interior disappeared.

Flashes of light exploded behind my eyes, and I had a sudden vision of bright metal flashing in the scorching sun, felt my heartbeat quicken, and heard the clash of steel. A swordfight, I realized, forcing my eyes open as the carriage returned. There is going to be a swordfight. But between whom and over what, I didn't know. As likely as not, we wouldn't be involved, I told myself, sheepishly climbing back onto the seat. Ariana was looking at me, concerned, but I shook my head, mumbling about a sudden chill. The truth was that I'd been having these strange flashes since I was thirteen, but they were usually only occasional and often vague. I didn't want to tell Ariana because… well, word would get out, somehow. I hated being the subject of gossip, and nothing stayed secret in a castle – least of all rumors of magic. Magic was not… _valued_ in the capital, to say the least, and I was sure that it was just a quirk. But still, this worried me. I'd had a vision earlier that day, and they were growing more frequent. Admittedly, the first had been more pleasant…

I didn't want to think about what the visions meant, so I just continued to sit in the carriage, trying to read and pitying the coachman until I fell asleep (oh, miracle of miracles, and I swear, it never happens) with the book pressed to my face and woke up with _happily ever after_ printed across my forehead.

***

"Now, who – Ariana? Oh, my dear, get inside, it's pouring out… Margaret! Can you bring two more teas now, please? Oh, and ask Benjamin to care for the coachman!" – _shouting_. Shouting, shouting, and more shouting, and most of it directly in my left ear. Yes – after hours of travel, we had finally arrived in Landworth, where the Duchess Ivette herself stood before us in the doorway. She was clutching a book in one hand, her red hair was braided rather crazily down her back, she was barefoot, and was wrapped in a clashing pink dressing gown. I liked her already. "My dears, come in!" she gestured wildly for us to follow her as she hurried inside the manor, calling for Margaret again. We didn't need telling a third time, and as soon as Ari (and the coachman with our possessions) was inside the house, I scuttled through and slammed the door shut.

"Oh, that's much better, isn't it?" she called merrily from where she sat – a few feet in front of me on a chaise lounge. "Now, Edward didn't send word of your visit, but that's all right. Please excuse my attire," she added hurriedly, "my manservant has a dreadful cold, the poor man, so he's resting in his room. I was just about to have some tea when Benjamin said that he heard the carriage approaching. Now, Ariana, what brings you here? Thank you, Margaret," she added as a serving girl placed a tray with three teacups (and, of course, all the necessary components that make tea _so_ delicious) on a table in front of her. Ariana had taken off her cloak and was sitting back on a sofa. "You're welcome to join us," she called to me, laughing brightly. Sheepishly, I took the steps towards them before standing next to where Ari sat on the sofa. The duchess was peering at me unashamedly, which was rather awkward. Thankfully, before she could say anything like _you have an ink stain on your forehead_, Margaret reappeared, and placed a loaf of something chocolate next to the tea. "We have cake! Oh, and Margaret, if you could please make two guest beds upstairs? Thank you. Now, please sit down, dear, you're making me uncomfortable," she chided me as I flushed the color of the flames.

"Thank you, your grace," I replied gratefully (_food!_), pulling off my cloak and taking the seat next to Ariana.

"You must be Marielle, am I right?" the duchess asked, adding to her cup enough sugar to kill a dragon. I tried not to watch as it refused to dissolve, nodding. "Ari, here, has written about you." I opened my mouth and found that, somehow, nothing was going to come out. I felt pleased, though, that I'd been mentioned enough for the duchess to know who I was.

"Oh! I apologize, Aunt Ivy, this is my lady-in-waiting, Lady Marielle. And, Marielle, this is my aunt, the Duchess Ivette. Or just Ivy," Ariana hurriedly introduced us, taking a delicate sip of her tea as soon as she had finished speaking. I rose quickly, nearly upsetting my tea, and bobbed a curtsy. Though I'd seen the duchess when she came to visit, we'd never been officially introduced.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, your grace," I said hurriedly before sitting back down.

"Likewise, Marielle, and please, dear, call me Aunt Ivy. So tell me, Ariana," she directed her gaze at the princess, "what brings you here today? You are here for a long visit, am I right?" the duchess leaned forward slightly, placing her elbows on her knees.

"Well – I suppose so. If only for a few weeks. You see… the king of Libonessen has offered for me," she said after a slightly awkward pause, trying to look happy. "And I thought that it would be nice to have some time to myself before the festivities. And wedding, we can't forget about… yes." Ari sort of trailed off, her gaze focused on the carpet beneath the table, and this time I could see that she'd given up pretending to not be unhappy. The duchess, however, gave a sudden shriek of delight and clapped her hands together before impulsively squeezing her niece's hand.

"Congratulations, dear! You must be so excited! What is your dress going to look like? You don't know – well, of course not, it must be recent… why didn't your father tell me sooner…? What is your fiancé like?" The questions exploded out of Duchess Ivette's mouth (along with tiny, soggy pieces of cake – _disgusting_, I thought as I tried to discreetly wipe at the tabletop with a handkerchief). Still, she listened as Ariana spoke briefly, saying that she didn't know much about the king except that he was a decent ruler and that he wanted the alliance with Marquia.

"Well, still," she declared, several moments later, stretching her arms and practically inhaling her second slice of cake, "this is a thing to celebrate. Actually, Ariana, I was planning to have a sort of ball for the townsfolk in a couple of days. We shall announce your engagement then! I'm sure that your citizens will be thrilled to hear this… now, I _am_ awfully tired… Have you finished your tea, dears? _Margaret!_" _Poor Margaret_, I thought, as she stumbled into the hall from the kitchen and hurriedly grabbed the tray. Still, the duchess seemed kind enough. Ari had told me about her, briefly, when we had set out – her father's younger sister had married the Duke of Landworth, who died in a hunting accident only a year later. She'd never had any children, but she was Ari's favorite aunt. Her _mother_'s sister was married to a man who was certifiably insane. I'd met their horrid three-year-old the year before, an event that marked a tragic day, in my mind. The child, named Jacob, was a monster. He bit me on the wrist! I was carrying him to meet Ariana and he _bit_ me! Of course, I screamed and dropped him, as he'd actually _drawn blood_. Fortunately, he landed on a cushioned chair, but did that make a difference to Lord Psycho? No. He hauled me up and shouted at me in front of the whole court. I had never been so humiliated in my life. And I now have four scars on my right arm.

"Margaret? Show my niece and the lady their rooms for tonight, please. I trust that the coachman is comfortable?" the duchess's voice brought me back to the present with a start.

"Oh, no, your grace," Margaret spoke for the first time in a hoarse voice, as if she was used to shouting. When the duchess looked disapprovingly at her, she quickly continued. "We offered him supper and a room, but he said that he needed to return to the castle tonight. We weren't able to do much else." _Who is __we_? I wondered, looking from Margaret to the kitchen door behind her.

"Oh. Well, thank you. Well, good night to all of you. Pleasant dreams!" the duchess yawned, rising. Ariana turned follow Margaret, and I did the same, wondering what it would be like to live as the duchess did – widowed and without children. I mean, without a husband, she was free to do whatever she liked. If she wanted to, she could hold contests and throw random parties for the villagers and learn to do magic and go wherever she wanted to in the world. _An exciting life, maybe_, I considered as I thanked Margaret and entered the guest chamber in the darkness. _But lonely_.

***

I rolled over onto my front in the guest bed, trying and failing to fall back asleep as sunlight streamed through the windows, warming patches on the floor. "Oh, of _course_ I forgot to draw the curtains last night," I grumbled into the pillow, curling into a ball as if _that_ would make the sun go away, barely registering the fact that my arm was asleep. "Go away," I ordered the sun. "You're not welcome here."

After a few moments, it became clear that no, the sun was not going to just up and disappear, and I was forced to sit up and open my eyes. I can never go back to sleep after having woken up. Blinking as they adjusted to the light, I stared blearily around at my surroundings. I'd had only one candle in my room the night before, and had dressed for bed in darkness. Looking down, I realized with a groan that I was wearing Ariana's nightdress. No wonder I was so uncomfortable – it was too small. "Oh, Margaret must have switched the trunks," I moaned, flopping back down. Not only was Ari a light sleeper, but she always slept late as well. The sun had been up for an hour or so, but it was still early, and I didn't want to wake her. Still, I decided, reluctantly sliding out of the bed and hitting the cold floor, I had to get my own clothes back, and anyway she'd be irritated if she woke up and found that she had my clothes instead of hers.

I ended up having to lug Ari's trunk over to the door. I though briefly about borrowing her dressing gown until I had my own, but decided against it. I mean, what did it matter? It's not like I was at home, with servants and guards around every corner. Here there was only Margaret and the duchess and maybe a stable boy. Panting from my effort of dragging Ari's trunk across the room, I swung the door wide open, grumbling to myself. "Can't believe that –"

"Milady, I have – oh, I'm so sorry –" I stopped dead at the voice, my eyes slowly traveling upwards. In my doorway, holding a tray of various breakfast foods, stood a young man; he was my age, maybe a little older. In dark, baggy trousers and plain cotton shirt, he was dressed like a servant, but his arms were tattooed with the symbols that Irentian noblemen wore. His black hair was longer than most Marquian men's, as well, and I saw hope for the traditional Irentian beard on his face. He was not bad looking, the vain little monster inside me whispered, not bad at all. So a handsome, foreign nobleman's son was standing in my doorway bearing food _and_ seeing me in Ari's worst, frilly, lace-with-bows nightgown and a _really_ bad case of bed head. And, I realized with horror, I still had the _happily ever after _ink stain.

I thought that I was still in bed having a nightmare. I even actually pinched myself on the wrist.

"_Uh_," I managed to get out, taking a few steps back as my cheeks flamed. He kept his brown eyes lowered, as well, a blush spreading across his tanned face. I didn't see how shutting myself inside the chamber would help, as I wanted the food, and as Ari's regular clothes were too small for me, I didn't want to wear those either. Finally, the silence got to be too much for me to bear, so I straightened my shoulders and sighed. "Well, this is exceedingly awkward," I finally said, reaching out to take the tray. "Is this for the princess?"  
"No, milady," he answered, finally meeting my eyes as his lips curled up into a half-smile. "The duchess said that you would both be hungry this morning, and she knows that you're an early riser."

"Oh," I paused, wondering what else, exactly, Ariana had told the duchess about me. "Well, in that case, you both have my thanks. Do you… work here?" I asked cautiously, placing the tray down on the trunk and surveying it. The cook had given me three enormous blueberry scones, two sliced apples, and a bowl of porridge fit for a giant. It all looked and smelled so delicious – too bad, I thought sadly, that I wouldn't be able to finish all of it. I knew that there was no small table in my room as there had been at home, and I didn't want to leave dressed in Ari's nightgown. With a sigh, I looked behind the man's shoulder, checking up and down the corridor, before kneeling down on the floor.

"Work here? Oh, no, milady, I'm staying here with my father, Mage Joaquin." The stranger in front of me sat down on the floor as well as he answered. "He's… courting the duchess, and I thought I'd make myself useful," he added, slightly embarrassed. "So, you are the Marquian princess's lady-in-waiting, yes?"

"Yes, I'm Lady Marielle, but you can just call me by my name," I said cheerfully, actually using the knife to divide my scones in half. (As opposed to ripping them in two, as is typical. It's surprising what the presence of a handsome stranger makes one do.) "Would you like some breakfast?"

"I'm Benjamin – well, Ben – and yes, thank you," he smiled for the first time, and his whole face lit up; it was as if someone had put stars behind his eyes. I admit, it stopped my train of thought for a moment, and I paused, but hurriedly looked back down at my scone to continue buttering it as my stomach gave a lurch. _Oh, no_…

"So, you're from Irenta, am I right?" I asked, handing Ben his half of the scone. When he nodded, I continued. "What's it like, where you live?"

"Well, I'm studying in the capital, and…" and that was it; I got to have a real conversation with someone besides the princess. Ben was clever, I discovered; he liked to talk as well, and readily told me about his home, and asked me about mine, but more importantly than that, he actually listened to what I had to say and responded to it. For the first time in I-don't-know-how-long, there was someone there to actually listen to me. My father didn't really care about what I had to say, and even though Ari tried, I knew she got sick of hearing me yammer on all the time. Ben was different – he was funny and intelligent and nice and… _Oh, no, don't let these thoughts keep going like this!_

We kept talking and sharing stories until the door to Ari's room opened, and she peered out, my too-big dressing gown draped around her shoulders. I stopped in midsentence and got to my feet suddenly, wondering what time it was. The scones and apples were long gone, and what remained of the oatmeal was cold. Ben stopped lounging on the floor and sat up quickly.

"Good morning, princess," I said quickly, bobbing a curtsy as my face flushed. We had to keep up appearances. "How did you pass the night?"

"I should leave, go get breakfast for the princess," Ben muttered as he got to his feet and nodded to me. "I'll see you at lunch, mila – Marielle," he added quickly, dashing down the hall. I raised an eyebrow, struggling not to feel insulted. Okay, princesses could be intimidating. I mean, I still remembered the time that the cook's small son had dropped Ari's dinner tray and then started wailing that she would have his head lopped off. But, I thought crossly as Ben scampered off, not that intimidating.

"I slept well, thank you, Marielle, but, ah… someone switched our clothes," she said suddenly and decisively, her eyes flickering from me to the empty breakfast tray and back as a strange, _wolfish_ smile spread across her face. "So I would like you to bring mine. And then we shall have a _long_ talk about some… _things_."

_Things_, I groaned inwardly, lugging the trunk across the hall. The mystery of Ben the Mage Joaquin's son, that's what _things_ means. Great. I'm never going to live this down.

**Thanks for reading! Did you love it? Hate it? Kinda-maybe-sort-might-could-like-it, but think it needs improvements? That's awesome. Just leave a review and tell me! I like getting constructive criticism. Thanks! **


	7. Chapter Seven

**Hey, everybody! So… this is my first update in exactly one month, but that's because this chapter has been a long time in the making. (I know, excuses, excuses… ;-) ) Anyway, I just want to rectify some wrongs in the last chapter (thanks to Ellsbeta – muchos gracias!): Ariana cannot read the letter, and I stated that she had. I'm glad that she found the error, because once I saw it, it really irked me – I just didn't want to bother you guys with reading basically the same chapter without that flaw. Thanks also to aries200, Lumiere Hikari, Bingo7, and bellathedisenchanted. Now, I'll stop ranting. Enjoy!**

**Chapter Seven**

**Ariana**

"So… tell me what his name is," I begged as Marielle dressed my hair. I was still waiting for my breakfast, and I suspected that sir-handsome-stranger wasn't going to make another appearance. I smiled at my reflection in the mirror, wishing absently for earrings. Mother had always told me that she thought jewels in one's earlobes were vulgar and common, and had forbidden me to pierce them. That hadn't stopped me from wanting to and envying those who had, though. "Will you tell me, please?" I asked again, my thoughts flashing back to the more pressing matter at hand.

"No. I don't want to," Marielle answered sulkily, looping a green ribbon around one of the strands. "So I don't think I will."

"I _can_ just insist that you tell me," I pointed out triumphantly, glancing in the mirror for one last look before turning to face Marielle, who had finally scrubbed her face free of the ink stain I'd noticed last night. "Or I could just ask Margaret. 'Ooh, who is the _amazingly_ handsome young man that my lady-in-waiting flirts with so nicely?' " I grinned, watching in satisfaction as her face darkened to a lovely shade of rose.

"I was talking," Marielle answered hotly, winding the ribbon around her finger. "I was not _flirting_. A Young Lady _never_ flirts," she mimicked that awful governess she always complained about as her finger slowly turned purple. "That sort of behavior is only for common whores with loose morals and nothing to lose." _Ouch_; point taken, dear. I snorted at the statement, and turned so that she could tie the hair back.

"Marielle, you're always the first to say that you _aren't_ a Young Lady."

"All the more reason _not_ to say such things to others!" she pronounced with the air of one who has just scored a major victory. Not having followed her twisted logic, I blinked a couple times before nodding. "Of course, Marielle. Whatever you say. Now, anyway, tell me what his name is."

"I won't!" she folded her arms across her chest and forced a furious scowl onto her face. Child.

Unfortunately for Marielle, at that moment a knock came from the door to my chamber. "Breakfast for the princess," a male voice stated from behind the door. My brown eyes met Marielle's green ones, hers fierce with determination. Both pairs narrowed.

Marielle leapt from her seat and flew for the door as I followed, accidentally slamming into her. I heard a _thud_ as she went down, but it didn't matter; I'd gotten to the door first. Quickly, as she scrambled to her feet, I wrenched the door open and grinned a crocodile smile. It was the mysterious stranger. I'd won. "Thank you, but I don't usually eat in the morning," I stated, taking the tray from his hands and placing it on the low table by the door. He looked from Marielle's somewhat-disheveled appearance from her slight tumble to me, a nervous expression beginning to show on his features. "Excuse me, but what is your name, please?" I asked before he could make an escape, smiling widely again and leaning against the doorframe to block my lady-in-waiting.

"Benjamin, Princess. I'm, um, the son of Mage Joaquin. He's courting the duchess." The last bit was said in a rush, as if he were embarrassed to say it. I regarded him for a moment, surprised – I hadn't known that, and I doubted that father had, either. In Marquia, it is customary for the closest male relative to give permission before the courtship took place, and I doubted that my father had heard either… but the idea of a secret romance was exciting, and so I put any ideas of protocol out of my mind.

"Don't mind her, Ben," Marielle called out, throwing an irritated glance my way. "She's just… just Ariana," she finished lamely, for lack of an adjective that would describe my behavior without giving herself away. I stopped blocking the doorway and turned to face Marielle, who tugged nervously at the bodice of her green dress. Then, without warning, she gave a cry and staggered, clapping a hand to her forehead as her eyes widened.

Before I could react, Benjamin had reached her, catching Marielle before she hit the ground, one arm down to support her back. There was a moment of tense, nervous silence before she opened her eyes and gave her head a little shake, her hand still on the wall from where she'd tried to keep herself from falling. "Are – are you all right, milady?" the mage's son asked, slowly bringing her up to a standing position. Noticing Ben's intense gaze, I smiled slightly and stepped back, trying not to feel concerned. Marielle was fine. Of course she was fine.

"I – yes, yes, it's nothing," Marielle muttered, ducking her head and stepping back. "Nothing," she repeated, flashing a bright smile towards both of us. "I'm fine."

"You really should see a healer," Benjamin insisted, his brows knitted together in an odd, concerned little frown. "My father should have returned from the village, maybe we ought to speak to him –"

"I told you both," she laughed, her voice containing, this time, a slight sense of urgency. "I'm fine." There was a silence in which Ben regarded Marielle carefully before his lips twitched and his face broke into an easy smile.

"Would you care to see manor, as well as the grounds?" he inquired, looking at both of us. "Princess, I know it has been some time since you have last visited, and, Marielle, you've never been."

"That would be wonderful, thank you," I finally spoke, truly smiling for the first time that morning. "And… may I inquire as to the whereabouts of the duchess?"

"She is out with my father, I think. She wanted to tell the villagers about this… party she's decided to throw. Now, are you ready for the grand tour?" Ben asked cheerfully, clapping his hands together. "I've been assigned to be your guard, Princess," he added as we followed him into the corridor. "Her grace knows that the king would prefer you to be protected at all times, especially in such an unfamiliar territory, and… oh! This room," he began as I processed the information, "was the bedchamber of the late duke, and is actually where he died. The cook, Aridia, believes that his ghost is still here…"

And we were off on a tour, with Benjamin telling us bits of trivia about each room, as if he actually cared about it. Marielle, who enjoyed learning about the past, was enthralled, excitedly connecting each piece of history with something she'd already learned. I didn't like history nearly as much, and, being left out of their conversation, I was bored. I managed to fake enthusiasm every time they looked back at me, but for the most part, I allowed my mind to wander. Benjamin would be a good protector; I was sure of it. Having been around guards all my life, I could tell the good ones from the cruel or lazy. He did talk too much about things I didn't care about, which didn't give him a completely fantastic first impression. Still, he wasn't stupid, that was for sure.

Despite the death-by-boredom tour, the gardens caught my attention. Aunt Ivy had allowed her namesake to crawl and cling to the walls in the small courtyard, and consequently, the entire area looked green. Flashes of color where exotic flowers bloomed bombarded my vision from all sides; the intoxicating scents of thousands of blossoms swirled around me. In one small corner, I could see who I presumed was the cook, harvesting a few plants from the tiny herb garden. I'd loved plants all my life, and it had been my aunt who had actually cultivated my interest in botany. I'd always been interested in what the physicians in the castle did, and how they worked, and I would sometimes observe them. All I had learned to do thus far, however, was heal burns.

I didn't dwell on this, though, as I watched Marielle bounce along happily with Ben, her smile lighting up her face each time she laughed, while he answered just as cheerfully. I noticed, though, that he kept his hands clasped behind his back, except for when he let go to point at something. The gesture, though strange, seemed more out of habit than a conscious attempt not to touch something, which would suit my lady-in-waiting just fine; she'd never been demonstrative, and _hated_ my (and Bridgette's, come to think of it) sudden hugs. "Sneak attacks," she would call them, shuddering.

The grounds were as beautiful as the garden, with sprawling willows, a little pond shrouded by oak trees that looked, in my opinion, fairly climbable, and a meticulously maintained moat. Aunt Ivy's was the only manor home I knew of that actually had a moat surrounding the walls of the main building; she said that the border wars several years ago had forced whoever had been the duke to do something to protect the people inside. Clean and clear, the "moat" had been enchanted by Ben's father to have a slight current, so that the water did not become "stagnant and ugly," as the magician's son explained, distaste in his eyes for the frivolity of the action. Still, he went so far as to claim that it had once been stocked with poisonous snakes. A step up, I assumed, from the monsters that were said to guard the castles of Irenta, but did not say aloud.

"Her grace told me all of this," he admitted as we gazed at the moat which, I noted, did not contain garbage or waste or any other disgusting products, as the moat at home did. "I mean, all the little stories. It was her idea to give the… tour."

"It was a good one," Marielle said thoughtfully, leaning over as she dragged her fingers across the water, swirling sand particles so that they caught the sun. "It's always good to know the little facts about where you live – well, where we're staying."

We were silent for a few moments, watching the light swirl of the water and enjoying the warm sunlight on our shoulders. Without thinking, I removed my slippers and sat down on the grass to dangle my feet in the water. It felt wonderful – freedom to be myself without worrying about being caught or scolded or looked at in a disapproving manner. Ben, who had, I realized, been waiting for me to sit, sat down on the bank; Marielle hurriedly _thump_ed to the ground as well, her eyes closed as she relaxed in the sunlight.

For a moment there was silence between us, and then, surprisingly, I was the first to speak. "What did you mean about a party?" I asked, turning to face Ben. Of course, Marielle had packed a nice gown or two, but they weren't ball attire, and I wasn't entirely sure I would need them, anyway. I tipped my head back, and let the warmth of the sun on my face contrast with the cool water on my feet; the grass smelled fresh and… clean, I suppose, and I could detect the scent of sage on the breeze. Simply paradise.

"She's decided to throw a party – a ball, sort of, but a party – next week, celebrating your engagement."

In that moment, the perfection of the world around me shattered as I was forcibly dragged back down into reality. My engagement. Of course. What else was there to be celebrated? I wondered bitterly, the already-dragging secret I carried suddenly gaining another ten pounds. My eyes went towards Marielle's direction, but she wasn't looking at me, worried; no, she, the endlessly hopeless romantic, was gazing at Benjamin, her eyes dreamy and thoughtful. She was no help.

"My engagement," I swallowed, drawing my feet out of the water as the breeze washed over me again, though this time it felt unpleasantly cool. "Yes. Ah… I'm ready to go inside, now," I spoke, and Marielle instantly got to her feet, her quick fingers picking up my shoes and her own. "I'm rather hungry, surprisingly."

***

It was one evening a few days later, as we sat at Aunt Ivy's enormous dining table, that I first met the Mage Joaquin. He spoke Irentian with a thicker accent than his son did; I supposed it was because Benjamin spent most of his time in the Walled City, studying with his uncle. Anyhow, the mage resembled his son in everything but his manner – they both had the green eyes that suggested they were part of an elfin bloodline, similar tattoos, and longish black hair. Though Ben enjoyed conversing, he was quiet and more reserved than his father, who spent most of the evening gesticulating wildly and shouting in his booming voice. When I consider the prejudices we all held then, I am surprised that my people readily accepted an Irentian _mage _when a common Marquian _warlock _was treated with less respect. I could see, however, why my aunt loved him. He spoke kindly to both myself and Marielle, showed appropriate respect, and, when Marielle inquired, told us all how excited he was about their impending wedding. I was comfortable, to my surprise, with the intimate setting of the table; we were joined by Aunt Ivy's manservant, the cook, the scullery maid, and, finally, by the harried-looking Margaret. Aside from Marielle and one or two children when I was younger, I had never actually befriended any of the servants.

The past three days we had spent at the manor had been wonderful; with Benjamin as a companion, Marielle and I had explored the grounds, added to her collection of stories with a book of Irentian folktales, and merely relaxed inside the manor. Ben had proven to be kind, perceptive, and thoughtful, and while he was always ready with an answer, he wasn't especially talkative. This worked out very well for my lady-in-waiting, who would talk to a stick if there was nobody else, especially because he was a good listener. It was clear to anybody who paid attention (and I did) that they had an undeniable chemistry, and I was happy to see Marielle light up whenever he was around, and vice versa. Of course, thoughts of her father, not to mention her overprotective brother, entered my head… but, as with Aunt Ivy, I shoved it away. It didn't matter here, where there was nobody around to disapprove of anything.

"I had thought," Aunt Ivy proclaimed that evening as Margaret took her place near the end of the table, "that it would be lovely if we both announced our engagements at the same time, Ari."

"Really?" I asked, trying not to show my dismay. Partially because… well, she was my _aunt_, and partially because Father still didn't know. Still, it was strange, and I tried to cover the awkwardness by answering, "That sounds wonderful!" in a voice that was far too bright.

"Good," Aunt Ivy responded, clearly proud of herself for the idea. "And so, in four days' time, we will be having a… oh, a ball, I suppose, is really the more appropriate word. We'll hire some extra people for the cleanup, of course," she added hastily to the scullery maid, Ava, and poor Margaret, who looked as though she wanted to collapse into her plate. "Formal attire, strictly – I expect we'll only have the villagers, but that's all right, there's always Joaquin's friends –"

In the corner, the mage gave a small cough as Ben shot him a stricken look. I blinked, hoping Aunt Ivy hadn't noticed; no, she continued chattering on cheerfully as Marielle nodded politely, her eyes rather glazed over. "Ah, _dearest_ –" Mage Joaquin finally managed to get out, "it may not be such a grand idea to invite my friends. They're a little… eccentric," he managed, just as Ben snapped, "Insane."

My aunt's face fell, and she sighed. "Very well, we'll have to do without the, ah, magical crowd for the evening. Are you quite sure –"

"Father's closest friend is a wizard who frequently misplaces his wand," Ben announced, a hint of irritation in his typically placid tone. "The last time he did so, I nearly lost an eye."

"Ah," Aunt Ivy's own eyes widened before she snapped her expression back to its usual one – a cross between merriment and secrecy – and continued buttering her roll. "I see. Well, there's always Ariana's groom, of course – and Marielle, you do have family in the area, yes?" I turned, confused, to Marielle, who, upon suddenly having everyone's attention upon her, resembled a goldfish. "Um, yes, Aunt Ivy," she managed to get out, her face flushing. "My mother and brother live about twenty miles east. And my sister-in-law," she added quickly, swirling her food together. I had never actually visited my lady-in-waiting's childhood home, as to do so would require her father's accompaniment, and Sir Ian nearly never went back there if he didn't have to. At least, I thought, observing Marielle, my parents were in love – or if they weren't, each at least tolerated the other until I was out of the room. And at least my father had not engaged in any extramarital affairs around the castle, as the nobility did frequently… Bridgette had, of course, kept me informed about all the gossip.

"Well, we shall have to extend them an invitation!" boomed Joaquin, and Marielle's face immediately relaxed into a smile as she looked up, raising her fork to her lips. "What is your mother's name?"

"Lady Imogene d'Este," she answered, putting the fork down with great reluctance. Disinterested, I became aware that, down the table, the servants were having their own discussion involving who was in charge of what during the party, and I began to feel sorry for them. I'd never really considered how an event like a ball – or, in my case, the lavish occasions my mother continued to toss out for my fiancé – affected the help. Without thinking, I blurted out suddenly, "I can help with the gardens"… and then felt like an idiot as each person stared at me as if a frog had just spoken. "That is… I can help with the… arrangement of the flowers, and that sort of thing. At least before. If you need me to. I mean…" my voice dropped off to nothing, and I turned my attention back to my food, trying not to feel any stupider than I did.

"Nay, milady, anythin' ye like," the-manservant-whose-name-escapes-me nodded thoughtfully. " 'Twould save me a lotta trouble, that's for sure, what with makin' the new plans and all." I nodded, a smile tugging at the corners of my lips. It would be nice to help with the gardens – and it would certainly get my mind off of Braxton. I couldn't help but remember how he'd promised to come a few days ago, but it hadn't happened. Obviously, my mother had held him up with some wine tasting or feast or fitting.

She'd unknowingly bought me another three days of freedom. But how long would this last? I didn't know, and didn't want to think about it more than I had to; still, I didn't know how to avoid it. I was deep in thought, and I almost didn't hear Marielle calling my name.

"Princess? Uh, milady?" she asked, and I started. At the head of the table, my aunt was snorting, "You don't have to call her that here, dear! Goodness, you'd think she actually carried on that way…" Marielle, flushing, mumbled a quick _yes-Aunt-Ivy_ and explained what I'd apparently missed. "Ben says that he wants to show us something – he thought you'd find it interesting, what with your wedding being so soon. He thought that it might help you adjust better, to living somewhere else." I looked over at Benjamin, whose eyes were earnest, and smiled.

"Of course," I stated dryly, standing. "I'm sure anything will help."

***

As the courtship between Mage Joaquin and Aunt Ivy was fairly recent, Ben explained on the walk to his study, his father had called him from his home with his uncle in the Walled City to come and meet her, just a few weeks before. "It's nice being on a break from learning," he admitted as we began the trek up a long staircase. "My uncle isn't the most patient teacher in the world. Still, my father moved this here, and when you spoke about your wedding I thought it would be the perfect thing."

"Really?" I asked, intrigued by the mysterious offer. We'd reached the corridor that contained Benjamin's father's study by now, and I was growing both excited and anxious. "And… what is _it_, exactly?"

"It," Ben announced grandly, sweeping the door open, "is this."

What he was referring to was immediately obvious – standing at least two feet taller than I was, and twice as wide, a vast mirror dominated the right wall of the study. To be truthful, it was not exactly an impressive thing to behold; the frame, with strange words carved around it, had turned brass from disuse, and I could see spots of bright metal where gems had fallen out. The mirror itself was a strangely bent, gray-green color. "Now, if you just stand here," Ben demonstrated, guiding me over so that I was directly in front of it, "and look at yourself…" I obliged, turning my head away from him and into the eyes of my reflection, and gasped. Silver sparks licked at the frame, replacing the brass with gold, cleaning the grimy letters around the rim, and adding the missing jewels – magic, obviously, but what was the purpose?

I realized said purpose immediately as the sparks leapt from the frame, and as the mirror turned to shimmering clarity, my reflection changed as well. My features were still the same, but my skin was a shade darker, less pasty; my hair was threaded with a silver cord that met a matching tiara, and I was draped with what I could only presume was my wedding dress. I swallowed, and tried to ignore what I knew about this costume – accept that it was magic, and pretty, and my new friend Ben had shown it to me to please me. The whole-murderer-bent-on-power thing was still solely between me and Marielle, and I intended it to stay that way. Still, I turned my head, admiring my false jewelry (_earrings!_) and carrying on the way any female would in front of a mirror. "It's amazing," I turned to Ben, smiling. "Why does it –"

"No, wait. You have to face it and say –"

"Mirror, mirror," murmured Marielle, a grin spreading across her face. Ben laughed.

"No, not quite, but that is a good idea. I'll say the words," he indicated the strange combination of letters sprinkled around the now-gold frame, "and you simply say somewhere you want to be or someone you want to be, and it will show you."

"Really," Marielle said interestedly, turning her head towards the mirror and dragging a hand through her hair.

"Yes, really," Ben grinned back at her, and I suppressed a smile as Marielle's face lit up like a firefly. "Now, princess…"

"Of course, right." I stepped towards the mirror and thought. What did I want to see the most? Not my parents, really – after all, I'd just gotten used to the freedom of not having my mother breathing down my neck every five minutes – and certainly not Braxton. Of course, there were others, but… I glanced at Marielle out of the corner of my eye, and knew who she would ask to see if given the chance. "Ben?" I asked, my subject chosen, and he obliged, carefully allowing words I had never heard before to slip into the air. "Show me Sir Johan, son of the Lady Imogene d'Este," I commanded once he had finished, and the room fell silent.

A ripple passed across the cold surface, the mirror pulsed with green at the edges, a low buzzing filled my ears; there was color spreading from the corners of the mirror, and I heard Marielle gasp as the change took place. For a moment, there were bright, misshapen forms, and then it settled, falling back into definition. I could see, though not hear, a young man of maybe twenty. He carried himself with confidence, though I knew he was unaware that, several miles away, we were watching Marielle's brother Johan. I had met him once, but we had both been children, and the thing I remembered most was how he'd jumped about, playing swordfights with one of the baker's sons. Now, he leapt forward in the hallway, jabbing at an imaginary opponent. It was apparent, I thought, struggling not to laugh, that that aspect hadn't changed. We watched as the picture changed, following him as he stepped through a door and into what I assumed was his bedchamber – there was, after all, a bed in one corner, but the room carried all comforts of home. There were two massive bookshelves sitting on either side of two soft-looking armchairs, one of which was inhabited by a lady, obviously with child, with a small gray cat curled on her lap. Johan grabbed a book off of one of the several bookshelves in the room and plopped happily down next to the woman. Flipping anxiously through the book, he finally settled on the correct page, and began to read soundlessly to the woman. She tipped her head against the wall, one hand on the cat, and the other on Johan's free hand. "Isabel," Marielle pronounced as her smile widened. "My sister-in-law. They were married… last summer, about a year ago, I think."

"Have they thought about names?" I tried to phrase the question as delicately as I could, but Marielle nodded, her eyes focused on the picture of comfort and happiness and home.

"Laurent and Suzette," she said absently, her eyes far away – perhaps they were back home, sitting with Isabel and Johan and listening to them read.

"They look happy," Ben murmured, appearing as transfixed as she was by the image. For a moment, I wondered why they were held spellbound, straining to read more into the peaceful picture of a familiar family life. I did not have to wonder long. For not half a beat later, I found that I, too, had looked too long, and began to feel the stirrings of loneliness and emptiness inside my own heart. I watched, looking for a sign that the sort of relationship that Johan and Isabel held was destined for me, too, one day – and found no sign. Before long, there was a whispering voice in my ear, and I didn't understand, but I wanted to hear it, needed to hear it, and –

"Son?" Mage Joaquin's voice cut through the room, and I snapped my head towards where he stood. Marielle and Ben had done the same, and I relaxed as the picture vanished. "I told you, you shouldn't look at it like that. You know what's happened…"

"You didn't say why," Benjamin muttered, but, nodding, added a pleasant, "Yes Father. I forgot to mention it, I suppose." Turning first to Marielle, and then to myself, he gave a neat apology and promised to see us at breakfast the next morning. Before we left, he slipped a smaller, handheld mirror into my hand, promising that he would teach me the words and that it would have a similar effect. My lady-in-waiting and I both swept quick curtsies and exited; I know that I certainly felt disoriented, first by the effect that the mirror had had upon me, and then by the sudden interruption of Mage Joaquin. It seemed that a short while later, I was sitting at my desk as Marielle unwound the ribbon in my hair. The mirror, now flat and useless without the magic, was lying next to me.

"What do you think we should do?" I asked, finally accepting the fact that I would have to tell her about Braxton. "He's coming here, you know. Soon."

"If he gets a hold of you again, he won't let you go," Marielle stated grimly, combing through the tangles. My eyes kept darting to the walls, each decorated with a different tapestry, and each windowless. I hated the _trapped_ feeling, even though Ben had created some sort of strange lights that wizards used. They were definitely better than candles, as they didn't catch anything on fire – they merely glowed with a golden sort of light. "He needs you. And he doesn't – I mean, he doesn't know that you know, right?" I paused. Marielle, suddenly concerned, dropped the comb to the floor and moved to face me. "Right?"

I could only shake my head wordlessly, hating my silence and wishing desperately that I could withdraw into myself. "He knows," I managed to get out. "Somehow. And he's coming here." There was more, awful, silence for a moment as Marielle looked at me blankly, as if she didn't quite understand. Then, her lips settling into a thin, tight line, she jerked her head.

"All right," she agreed, looking as if she wished to scream but couldn't. "I think I…" she trailed off, her mood switching abruptly from furious to thoughtful. "Well, what can we do?" she asked.

***

The next hour is pointless to describe; it consisted of each of us coming up with plans to warn my parents, stop Braxton, and all without making us look like liars or worse, insane. I was focused on finding the letter he hadn't sent; Marielle insisted that it would be smarter to "catch him in the act" of something nefarious. What that would be, though, I had no idea, and anyway she insisted that the letter was probably well on its way to its recipient. After locking horns without success, we fell quiet and thought.

"We could deliver his plans to the leaders of the Bright Isles!" Marielle shouted with sudden enthusiasm. "He'd bring them with him when he comes. You know, his official proposal… and you could have your father sign a letter…"

"That," I stated slowly, feeling stupid that I hadn't thought of it earlier, "may work. In fact, it may work perfectly. But how would we…"

"Oh, don't worry about that," Marielle responded cheerfully, her face lighting up with a wicked grin. "I've got a few ideas."  
**So… yes! Review, por favor!**


	8. Chapter Eight

**Hey, all! I just want to apologize for the delay, though I feel personally that this chapter is worth the wait. Maybe not to you guys – we'll find out! Thanks to Bingo7 and Ellsbeta for your helpful reviews. Oh! If there are any horrific grammar mistakes, I do apologize; still, most fragments are intentional, as that is how Marielle's thought process works.**

**Chapter Eight**

**Marielle**

Above all else – above linguistics, above curtsying, above happiness – I was good at sleeping. And I knew it. One of the things that both my mother and my nurse had despaired of was my bad habit of falling asleep anywhere; until I was maybe ten years old, whenever bored or tired, I would simply lean back or put my head down, and let dreams take me away. Mother put it up to insomnia, claiming that my imagination whirled so much that it kept me awake. This was true to an extent. In any case, once I started writing my wild imaginings down on paper, sleep came more easily at night, and I stopped needing naps during the day. I eventually began to resent them and got every bit of sleep I needed between the hours of nine in the evening and eight in the morning. This was my sleeping schedule, and I stuck to it.

And yet, here I was, two (nearly three) days after the discovery of the mirror, tossing and turning in the wee hours of the morning and trying unsuccessfully to drift off. One of the lights that Ben had made for me was bobbing around my ceiling, and – Ben. Even the thought of his _name_ made me feel different; it was hard to explain, like my chest was expanding and contracting at the same time. Every time I was with him, I actually had to consciously think about where I was looking. It was like his image was fighting for dominance with everything else in my line of vision. And whenever he looked back at me with that intense gaze… it was like there was nobody else in the world. It was official. I was in love with him.

"Oh, _yuck_," I moaned aloud, flopping over and then, changing my mind, sitting bolt upright. "Why did this happen to me?" I asked one of Aunt Ivy's cats, my words punctuated by sneezes. That was the one thing about the manor that irked me – the duchess had cats, and lots of them. There were at least three females, definitely two males, and, of course, one of the females had recently had kittens. Don't get me wrong, I liked kittens as much as the next person, but it didn't help that I was allergic. And so the cats, obnoxiously contrary little beasts that they were, _loved_ me. "It's only been six days! Since when have I – _acheeeoo_ – become one of those girls?" I demanded as a mewing Gabby, the calico, pounced at the slipper I'd left on the floor. Her mismatched eyes were dilated, as I could see even in the dim light, and I sighed. She wanted to play. I gave another sneeze as Gabby vaulted onto the bed, emanating a rumbling sound that grew louder with every step she took. "Go away." I gave a half-hearted shove towards the purring furball of doom and briefly wondered why I was even talking to it. To her. Whatever. "I guess _you_ don't know," I grumbled as she advanced. "You're just a cat. And it's lucky, too. You have your mate, and you can be with him without anyone telling you otherwise." And that was the issue, really.

I'd never forgotten how one of the servants back home – not Viola, but her sister, Annabel – had fallen hard for one of the courtier's sons, a handsome, winning young knight called James. Rumor had it that he had loved her, too, but within a week of the outbreak of gossip, James's parents had announced his engagement. Her name was Rosalie. She was the daughter of one of the members of the council, and had lived out in the country for most of her life; the day she and James first met was the day of their wedding. Annabel cried herself sick for a week, and then went about her duties with a sad, diminished look. That had been three years ago, and since then, she'd lost about twenty pounds and gained an expression of perpetual misery. Bridgette, who usually felt it beneath her to comment on the affairs of the help, made it a point to vocally pity her once a week. The image of the pale, thin, wraith haunted my mind, and reminded me daily of what happened to those who simply handed their hearts over without thinking. To those who did so, knowing that their happily-ever-afters were impossible.

And every time I thought about Ben, felt that bubbling sensation in my chest, there was the darker undercurrent of fear. My parents didn't know. Mother would probably approve, but then who knew? I certainly didn't. Father wouldn't care; he wouldn't care if I married a potato farmer, just so that the marriage defied tradition and the unspoken protocol about nobles and peasants. Johan would probably object to my marrying anyone Irentian. As is required of all Marquian boys, he served in the military from age fifteen to age seventeen, and he'd picked up some of his comrades' prejudices. No, he would never agree. And Johan's approval was the one I cared about most of all. But wait a minute, what was I thinking here? Silently, I asked myself, _have you consummated the relationship at all? Any spoken words, any promises, any embraces, anything? No. So it doesn't mean anything. It's barely been a week, you silly little girl. You don't even know what love is_.

Shaking my head, I turned my attentions back to the cat. Lucky creature. With a sigh, I took the purring furball into my arms and stroked her fur, trying to forget the full-out asthma attack in my near future. The purring was relaxing, and so was the heat; my mind was calming down, and I leaned back on my pillows drowsily, sniffling a little. I would have been asleep within minutes if I hadn't heard a crash in the next room – something had fallen, and something big. I sat bolt upright, scaring Gabby half to death and causing her to leap away from me and to huddle, her ears pressed flat against her head, by the door. Quickly, and as quietly as I could, I hopped out of my bed and I grabbed my dressing gown, forgoing shoes, and peered out into the hallway. Obviously, my first priority was Ariana, but a hurried check into her room revealed that she was still fast asleep, her breathing slow and even. She was fine.

What sounded like a trayful of the cook back home, Flora's, best china shattered one room over. I tiptoed over to the door and was about to open it when I heard voices. "– think that she doesn't know," Mage Joaquin was saying, though why he was in the late Duke's bedchamber I couldn't fathom, as Aunt Ivy slept in the next wing.

"Father, I'm sure, Marielle's never mentioned it, and why wouldn't she?" Ben's voice sounded almost angry, and it surprised me almost more than the mention of my name. I heard the crash again, as well as a slow hum. I quickly glanced to the right and to the left, and then knelt, peering through the keyhole. I hated eavesdropping, but I had to know what they had said I didn't. Ben (or half of him, anyway; I couldn't see him entirely) stood across the room, over a tray of what looked like glass. The humming, I realized was him; he was passing a hand over the broken dishes, mending them. "That's good, son. Just concentrate a little more," Mage Joaquin entered into my view, turning his hands to illustrate what he meant. Oh. Magic practice. "And maybe she just didn't want to say anything. It's not like it is at home, you know that. Having a witch for a mother isn't exactly something to be proud of."

I staggered back and sat down hard on the dirt floor, my breathing shallow. Mother? A witch? Never! She respected magic, to be sure, and pointed out certain mages or wizards that she knew – and, of course, she was proud of the fact that we were distantly related to one of the famous enchantresses of old – but she'd never really mentioned it. It wasn't a taboo topic in our house when I was little, but… well, I was little.

Whatever I knew of my mother, I realized slowly as my stomach clenched, I knew it because she had told me in her letters and in the brief days we had spent together. I only knew what she wanted me to know. So that was it; it was entirely possible that she was friends with Mage Joaquin because she, herself, was a spellcasting witch.

"I know how you feel, son, but she just isn't mumble mumble. And you know you can't mumble mumble mumble." Mage Joaquin's voice soothed. Immediately after, the glass shattered again. Still turning over in my mind the idea of my mother being… well, what Mage Joaquin was, I sat and concentrated on breathing, barely listening.

"Why does that _matter_?" Ben burst out, and I tried to listen to him. "She could be one, for all we know. The Talent always passes from mother to daughter, father to son, and I told you what I saw – what I _see_ – her do all the time. She's a Seer, Father. No matter how hard she tries to hide it." I was trembling, I realized as my hand made its way up to my mouth. A seer? My breath caught in my throat, and I could hear my heart's accelerated beating. They thought that _I_ was a witch as well? Yes, I knew, lowering my hand and pressing it instead to my heart. I was. I had to be. It explained everything, from the strange visions to the definite edge I felt, sometimes, that suggested that maybe I wasn't quite where I should be, that maybe I wasn't doing all I was capable of.

But this wasn't as big a shock as it might have been, provided I hadn't been having the visions. For years, I'd known that seeing into the future – however brief, however vague – was different. Maybe it wasn't _special_, as there were certainly millions who could, but different. It set me apart from, say, Ariana, who didn't have a drop of magical blood in her veins. What I really felt was relief, and then the dread hit, starting in the center of my chest and bleeding into my bones. Mother would accept it, she had to; but would Father? This whole evening truly was the children versus the parents, I thought. I'd gone from my parents accepting Ben to accepting me, which felt odd. Nevertheless… it wasn't as if anyone had to know, I thought, taking a deep breath and trying to calm myself. _Nobody ever has to know._

"And Father, I know that if you – we could still –" I heard Ben's voice distantly, and shook myself. Now, I knew that nothing _serious_ could happen if I was found, but it would make things rather awkward at the breakfast table tomorrow. I had to pay attention; I had to know when to leave or how to arrange myself to look as though I was sleepwalking. Or something.

"That's enough," Ben's father rumbled, and I stood up, backing away. "Go to sleep, Benjamin." I heard the doorknob rattle and, panicking, I retreated into the shadows next to one of the vases of overwhelmingly fragrant flowers that Aunt Ivy had all over the place. Ben exited the room, his face angry and drawn, as I alternately tried not to gag and tried not to laugh at the melodrama of the situation. I was, I think, becoming a bit lightheaded, and everything seemed funny.

"What about you and the duchess?" he said softly, lingering in the doorway. "She doesn't have the Talent, either." A few feet away, I bit my lip to keep from screaming. _Would you just leave, already? _My head was starting to ache from the stench of the blossoms.

"That is a different matter," Mage Joaquin's voice was clipped, "entirely. I have you, a son, and you have no one." _Children, he's thinking about children. Well, that is certainly awkward. _Mentally, I added this to my list of awkward conversations – I was thinking it was maybe a number three.

"It's not about me, it's about you and what you want, Father," Ben muttered, and I pressed back against the wall as he passed me, his eyes on the floor.

"Which is what, Benjamin?" Mage Joaquin demanded roughly, shutting the door with a snap as he left the room. "What is it that you think I want?"

But Ben didn't answer. Instead, he just kept walking, his hands clutching each other behind his back. Mage Joaquin stood for a moment in the hallway, his face a thundercloud, and then, silently, he strode back into his room. The only sign that he had ever been there, a shard of glass that had clung to his boots, glittered in the light of the torches. But as I watched, it, too, slipped between two stones and into obscurity.

So Ben was a warlock, Mother was a witch, and so was I. Fabulous.

***

Breakfast the next morning was close to unbearable. I'd fallen asleep around three in the morning, and for once, I was sick of chattering. Consequently, I was mostly quiet while we ate, my eyes darting grouchily from Benjamin to Mage Joaquin to Ariana and then back to Ben, who was looking determinedly at his vegetarian plate of fruit and biscuits. I'd been meaning to speak to him about my… uh, well, _witchiness_, I guess, but I found his father's calm, polite manner irritating after I'd discovered what he truly thought. As a result, I chewed my eggs with unnecessary ferocity and tried to forget the entire conversation I'd overheard.

Conversely, Ariana was cheerful and smiling; apparently, as she happily stated, she had had pleasant dreams and was very excited about the party. This, I suspected, involved seeing some peasant boy or another that she thought was handsome. We'd taken a walk the previous day and run into a few boys near our age, picking apples. Nothing of consequence happened, but Ari had seemed particularly cheered by their appearance. I'd thought nothing of it until this moment, but the princess had counted them as new friends… _well_, I thought in a grouchy attempt to feel better, _new friends are always nice_.

As the meal ended, Ari stood up, thanking Aridia, the cook, and started back towards her room. I took that as my cue to leave, and nodded at the others briefly as I got to my feet. "Milady," the mage called out, and I turned around, forcing what I hoped was a pleasant expression on my face. "You're… you're _sure_ your mother is Imogene d'Este?" For a moment, the expression dropped, and I blinked in surprise, offended.

"Yes, sir," I struggled not to be sarcastic, "I'm quite sure of _my mother's_ name."

"Yes, right… thank you," he waved his hand once, and I pressed my lips together. Of all the _nerve_… scowling, I turned on one heel and, sucking in a gulp of air, marched out of the room. I had to calm down; if I didn't, I was afraid I would start screaming. Breathing slowly, I made my way back to Ariana's chamber.

"Isn't this amazing? You can use the mirrors to actually _go_ places!" Ari cried as she jumped from her perch on her bed, the mirror in one hand. "You look, say what you want to see, and then you just… _whish_!" she made a sweeping motion with her arm.

"Why didn't Ben tell us earlier?" I wanted to know as I leaned against the doorframe, still cross.

"I guess he didn't have time before his father came in, and then it didn't come up." Ari bounced back down onto the bed, her spirits greatly improved from the previous night. "He told me that this morning, at breakfast. Weren't you listening?"

No, the answer was, no, I was not listening. Yes, I was very interested in this new development, and no, for the thousandth time, I did not think that earrings would make you look more regal, Ariana, and please stop bouncing on the bed, it's giving me a headache.

"But don't you understand?" she asked, breathless, and I looked at her wordlessly. "This is it, Marielle. The mirror is our way out of here. We could go anywhere – do anything. The Bright Isles, home, even the Faerie Empress's palace!"

"I doubt we'd have any need to go _there_," I commented, but I was smiling, and reached to pull a piece of stationary off of her bed. Already, I recognized the neat, methodical handwriting on sight. "Ben gave you the words?"

"Well, he wrote them down, but I don't read this language… you know what it is?"

"It's the Goblin tongue, I speak it," I observed, turning the paper over and mentally translating.

"How many languages _do_ you speak, anyway?" she asked wryly.

"Three, not counting this one," I answered absently, tracing a hand along the parchment and trying to remember certain verbs. As far as I could tell, the sentence didn't make sense; it was, I could only guess, some sort of idiom. Unless it was just gibberish. _Up travel to sea-mountain for kiss _(the word could also mean _apple_) _and buckets _(this could also mean _rainbows_) _of rain live up. _"Would it work if we spoke Irentian? This is sort of… well, it doesn't make sense."

"Probably not, and it only works if a witch does it." Ari pointed out, getting to her feet as guilt overtook me, making my face burn. She didn't know. She couldn't.

"Ben could do it for us – you know, once we've gotten the, ah, plan from the king." I added, pocketing the slip of paper and putting extra emphasis on _Ben_. I wasn't ready to tell her, not yet. I didn't even know if what Ben and Mage Joaquin had whispered was true. "Like you said, we can go the capital of the Bright Isles and tell the leaders what we've found. He can give you his protection."

"We would have protection here," Ariana pointed out, her smile fading. I tried not to lose my patience. Had a week away caused her to forget the reason we'd left in the first place? "My parents could…"

"Have you seen his friend, that Lord Griffyn?" I shuddered. Another factor I'd forgotten. Still, that man was frightening – he wasn't quite as taciturn as his companion, but as the king's advisor, he was doubtless in his inner circle. He had to know everything, and he didn't need brute force to harm us, not with the magic he had at his disposal. That had been the sole thing that Queen Hyacinth truly despised about King Braxton's companion: his penchant for flaunting the fact that he was a wizard. Not only that, but I had seen the look he'd given to Ariana once, as if she was a piece of meat. Stay with Aunt Ivy and risk dealing with that man? No, thank you.

"Well, I'm off," Ari pronounced after a moment of reflection, starting towards the door. "I promised the servant, what's-his-name –"

"Nathaniel," I answered with authority.

"Right, Nathaniel, thank you – that I would help with the gardens, with selecting the flowers and pulling weeds, and all sorts of things. I'm looking forward to it, actually. Oh, and don't worry, my mother's not supposed to arrive until this afternoon." Dimly, I realized for the first time that day that her gown was the one she'd once fallen into a mud puddle while wearing; her mother hadn't let her wear it again, but she'd insisted on packing it just as well, as it had been one of her favorites prior to the incident. I was having a hard time imagining Ari pulling weeds, but I knew how much she liked flowers.

"Well, I hope you have fun," was all I could say in response. "Do you need me to accompany you, Ari?"

"Oh, no! Just have some fun, go and flirt some more with Ben," she teased, her dark eyes twinkling with mischief.

"Oh, hush," I commanded as my face grew hotter. "I don't –"

"I know, I know. I'll send for you in an hour or so, all right? And then we can have our own lovely little plotting session and figure everything out." Her tone was flippant, but Ariana's face was deadly serious, and I shuddered as the day seemed to grow darker.

"Of course." I moved to the door and held it open for her as she exited, wishing that I was going to go and do something fun like dig for worms in the garden or whatever. Petulance had now set in, my subconscious self knew, and wouldn't leave for awhile; my conscious self ignored this and set off with the intention of finding Aunt Ivy's dead husband's library. It wasn't extensive, she'd told me the day before, swirling lumps of sugar in her teacup, but it was nice, and suited her well. She tried to add to it every time a visitor brought a new book to the house, and had even offered to buy the ragtag little volume of faerie tales I'd brought with me. I'd declined, stating that I'd gotten it out of the library back home – I couldn't imagine Cornelius's disappointment if I failed to bring it back, as it was his little son's favorite. Still, Aunt Ivy had given me a book of Irentian folktales, which were more exciting, as they were considerably filled with more magic.

Anyway, I found the library after getting lost and subsequently receiving directions from Margaret. It wasn't a large room, really, but each of the four walls was obscured by bookshelves, and each of those was lined with books. The only light in the room came from one window, overlooking the village below; the tiny townspeople were moving, I could see, from stall to stall in what had to be the market. I felt that, if I looked hard enough, I would see Aridia, bartering for flour and other ingredients for the festivities. She hadn't had a lot of notice, and I was glad that there would be more servants to help her that evening. I knew from experience with Flora that an understaffed kitchen leads to unhappy cooks, which ultimately leads to ill-prepared food. Which was, I shuddered, absolutely disgusting. My father had once given me a very important piece of wisdom: never, never, _never_ behave badly toward those who handle your food. It may just be the last thing you ever do. Which in part explains why I'd never exactly snapped back at Jemima.

I turned my attention away from the village and to the books. The Duke had obviously had very eccentric tastes; in any case, the collection was rather eclectic and disorganized, with biographies mixed in with long, drawn-out fictional dramas. I spent a few minutes glancing through a couple of the more recent volumes, trying to find something that I found interesting, but nothing leapt out at me. And then, I found it: an Irentian collection of biographies on long-dead, famous enchanters.

My own ancestor – a distant cousin, Mother had told me – was Elissa, an Irentian enchantress and undoubtedly the root of my current problem. I scanned the index and found her by title: Elissa the Resilient, date of birth (unknown) date of death (well over one hundred and fifty years ago), and opened the book to page four hundred and eighty-nine. The first thing I saw was an enormous block of text: somebody had dedicated a lot of time to this story, though whether it was credible or a bunch of nonsense, I'd never know. Still, I started to scan the biography – and a sentence into it, I was hooked.

It read like a story; details of Elissa's life were incorporated easily, such as her penchant for macaroons and the fact that she was deathly afraid of mice. Most of the text was a full description of a brief-yet-tragic love affair she'd had with a knight. This, I thought as I followed the words with one finger, absorbed, was the stuff of silly romantic stories; it had probably inspired them. The sad truth was that Elissa had lived and then died without her knight; though, as she'd died defending the kingdom from some wizard, it truly wasn't a _terribly_ sad ending. She and her husband, a warlock, had had two children: towards the bottom of the page, I found their names. The first had been a daughter, Pearl. And the second had been a son, James d'Este. My great-grandfather.

_Distant cousin_? Ha! My mother is a liar, I thought, and then suddenly began to resent her ever telling me not to tell lies. "Well," I said to the book, shutting it with a strange _whump_ing noise, "that clears _that _up."

"Clears what up?" someone said behind me, and I jumped about six feet, trying to whirl around to face him but getting caught on the chair and then _bam_, I hit the floor. Immediately, Ben was at my side, extending a hand to pull me up, but as confused as I felt, I resented him for it. What right did he have to think I was a witch and not tell me or sneak up on me? How rude!

"What are you doing?" I demanded, trying to take a deep breath as I took his hand, my skin tingling where it touched his. I could feel my face flushing. _Stupid_, a poisonous voice whispered as he pulled me to my feet and then let go of my hand slowly. _You silly little fool_.

"Are you all right?" he returned immediately, concern showing through each one of his features… his perfectly shaped features… and beautiful green eyes… _Oh, grow up_.

"I – I – I –" I stuttered, and then turned to face the window. I imagined that the little ant-sized person making his or her way back towards the manor was Aridia, someone with whom I was comfortable, and then spoke. "I'm fine," I turned back to face him. It felt as if my heart was compressing every time I looked at him; my words came out jumbled, even though I knew that, more or less, he felt the same way about me. _And do you want to be like that for the rest of your life?_

"What were you talking to yourself about?" he asked, and I mumbled that it was nothing, reaching back to push the book away. Ben, being a good head taller than I was, attempted to see over my shoulder, but I instinctively moved to block him, pushing up slightly to stand on the balls of my feet. Confused, he moved the other way.

"Talking? I wasn't…" I began to deny it after a pause as my hand went to cover what I'd been reading, but it was too late; he'd tried to take the book and, reflexively, I grabbed it back, starting to laugh.

"No, really, let me see," he insisted, and I shook my head, pulling it back as he took a step towards me, and, instead of where I told my legs to go, they moved towards him as well, almost closing the gap.

"It's nothing, it's worthless –" but he had leaned down to take it, I reached up to take it back, and then there wasn't any space between us at all, and his eyes were right there, enormous… _I have never been kissed before_, I realized as I let the book fall with a _thud_. "You'll know what to do," Viola had once confided in me; "you'll just know." _Don't think, just do it._ And so, without thinking, letting go of any inhibitions, I pushed up on my toes, shut my eyes, my hand slid up onto his shoulder, and we were so close, and then I heard it: the clicking sound of footsteps coming up the stairs.

"Um," I said oh-_so_-eloquently, falling back flat on my feet, stunned by the sudden closeness. "I…" Ben looked as though he had just remembered something, and appeared to be fumbling for words. Still, his hand found mine, and I didn't feel, right now, as if there was anything else left to say. As long as I kept looking at him, I would stay sure that this was right; it was when I looked away that the confusion set in.

"Marielle, I have to tell you that my father thinks –" he began, but then suddenly dropped my hand and took a step back.

"Marielle?" Ariana's voice called right on cue, and then she followed, stepping through the door that Ben had left slightly ajar. "Aunt Ivy… oh," she stopped as I sat down on the chair in surprise, and upon realizing that something was going on, she started babbling – slightly out of character for her, but then maybe her mother had caught her in the muddy dress. "I apologize, Ben, but, ah, my parents have arrived, along with half their entourage, and, um, I'd wondered if you knew where my dress is, Marielle? The one with the ribbons going down the side, and, um…" she gestured helplessly, and I stood, turning red. "You know how my mother is – we don't really get along," she added to Ben, "and she knows how to manage her, and, she likes to see me dressed up, and she thinks –"

"Of course," I nodded, and then looked back at Ben for a moment. "I know what your mother thinks," I told Ari softly, but my eyes were on him. "I understand completely."

"_Ek necroman en me conservar al ju_," Benjamin hissed in Elfin, his expression changing from confused to worried. _I need to talk to you_. I shot him a _look_, and indicated the puzzled and impatient Ariana with my eyes. "_Lantare_," I shook my head, moving towards Ariana and away from him. _Later_, I promised myself as I'd promised Ben. This could wait, I thought, wetting my lips and turning away. I was confused and tired and worse, King Braxton was here, and as much as I liked Ben, maybe loved him, I couldn't deal with this right now. And so I left him standing in the library, feeling hollow and broken as I traipsed down the steps in silence.

***

"What happened?" Ariana demanded the moment we were safe in her chamber, tapping one foot while I searched for the dress she'd wanted.

"You need to get dressed, and I… um…" I was at a loss for words, and suddenly felt tears of shame prick my eyelids. It was cruel to leave him like that; I shouldn't have done it, now he was probably hurt and even more confused than I was, and what I was I thinking, telling him that I knew what his father was doing? What, I was _crying_ now? I knew it was silly to cry over something as trivial as romance when, um, our _lives_ were possibly in jeopardy, but I couldn't help it. I'd hurt him.

"Marielle?" she asked softly, putting a hand on my arm. I turned, biting my lip and gripping my hair ribbon more tightly. "You can tell me anything, I promise," she smiled, perplexed by my expression. For a moment, I paused; I could tell her what had happened, that we'd almost kissed, been _that_ close… but on second thought, sharing something like that would feel wrong. It had been such a private moment; it felt like it belonged to only Ben and me. So, instead of pouring out my soul, which before this morning I would have been only too happy to do, I exhaled, handed Ari the dress, and then told her that nothing was wrong.

"All right," Ariana answered, nodding as her demeanor changed from comforting to standoffish; I knew she didn't believe me. She stood and crossed to the table where her jewelry was scattered, leaving me alone with my thoughts for a moment. After half a minute had passed, she looked up at me and proclaimed, "After supper. We'll get the papers after supper. Father's got the councilmen meeting – well, the ones that came, anyway – but I'm not invited. I'm supposed to rest until the party. I still don't see how we're going to get them." We were silent for a moment. Thinking of my supposed powers, I tried to focus, clearing my mind of the whole mess that was swirling around inside it and searching for that surge of power I felt whenever I "returned" from a vision. And then it happened. I clenched my fists as my vision turned inward. A flash of blue, a glimpse of shuffled papers, a pale wooden box embossed with the Libonessenian official crest; I knew where Braxton's original proposal was as my vision returned to normal. This was the first vision since I'd discovered that I was a witch, or whatever, and no I wondered if I had summoned it. _Did I do that?_ I asked myself, lightheaded. Had my concentration prompted this? I didn't know, and frankly, I didn't care. From this point on, I would have to try not to be shocked by anything: in the past twenty-four hours, I'd had my entire perception of myself, my mother, and my future turned upside down. I highly doubted that I would ever be surprised again.

Still, here I was now, faced with a problem I had to solve. I turned to Ariana suddenly. _Don't think, just do it._ "I've got an idea."

***

"You know what to do?" I had to double-check, and Ariana rolled her eyes. Supper had been, for the most part, uneventful – the servants had eaten later, as the king and queen plus several courtiers were visiting – but Ariana's father had ceremoniously given his blessing to Mage Joaquin. Ben and I were separated, as custom dictates, but I had noticed my father getting along well with him. Not that it mattered, since he hadn't looked in my general direction once. But that wasn't important – _focus, I have to focus_.

"I'll distract the guard while you slip in, get the papers, and get out. But how do you know where they are?" Instinctively, my hands knotted around my sash.

"I've got an idea, I told you." I looked warily towards the door. It was maybe nine thirty; they should be in the meeting by then. It was possible that the matter of succession was the issue: Braxton was going to ask that he be named the official consort once he'd married Ariana and, therefore, the future king. Or maybe he would ask nothing of the sort. One of the councilmen could potentially be named the successor, and Ariana would go on to rule Libonessen as queen. Of the three councilmen, the possibilities were thus: my father, Lord Curie, and Sir Luis.

My father. It was a strange thought, wondering if your father should be king, and I knew that he would do a world of good… and invoke the fury of the court if he did. Lord Curie. He would probably make the best king, as he stuck to his morals and would never do anything dishonorable, but he was notoriously indecisive, making plans and then not actually going through with them; the crown wouldn't pass to him. Sir Luis. Obsequious and flattering, he was nonetheless clever and would probably make a good king. Still, I'd always gotten the feeling that he had his own agenda, and I knew for a fact that he and King Braxton were close. I didn't trust him, not after hearing about the king's plan, and I knew that, if Sir Luis became king of Marquia, there was little chance of stopping either of them. However, I figured that the moment, I would rather deal with the snake than the toad, and so I brushed the thoughts of Sir Luis from my mind to concentrate on King Braxton.

"Well?" Ariana looked over her shoulder at me, her face tense and set. She slipped Ben's mirror into the pocket of her robe, along with a coin pouch that I'd noticed sitting on the desk. Well, I supposed that guards could be bribed. "Let's go."

"Um, Ari, you're still in your dressing gown," I pointed out, grabbing my own bag of coins, and then blinked as Ari's face relaxed into a smile.

"Oh, Marielle, dear, I know what I'm doing," she assured me, opening the door to her room a little wider. "Shall we?"

I followed her down the corridor, wondering where Braxton's room was. Keeping my eyes trained on Ariana, I tried to forget that what I was doing was treasonous, possibly cause for a war and certainly cause for my execution by Libonessenian law, and abruptly felt stupid. How could I not have seen that? Before I could turn back, though, Ari suddenly stopped just shy of a corner, and I knocked into her before struggling to stay upright.

"Is it a man?" she hissed, and I peered over the corner, my mind suddenly reeling. Of course the guard was a man – the guards were always men, the chambermaids were always women; that's just the way it worked. What did it matter? "Yes," I answered, glancing towards the lone figure, lounging in the hallway. He was maybe a little older than I was. "But wha –" I didn't need an answer; at my words, Ari grinned, and undid the sash of her dressing gown so that a thin strip of nightgown was exposed.

"_Shh_," she pressed one finger to her lips and pulled one sleeve of the gown off her shoulder; "_Perfect_," she mouthed at me, yanking the ribbon off the end of her braid and shoving it into her pocket. I wanted to dissolve into a puddle on the floor. I'd witnessed Ari's flirting before – just not when it was deliberate – and was starting to feel sorry for the poor guard.

"Hello," I watched her greet him, her voice a little higher, more girlish. I waited as the guard answered, his voice cracking. As her silvery laugh rang out, I could see that Ari was slowly leading him down the hall, and as they disappeared behind the next corner, I took my opportunity.

King Braxton's door wasn't locked – a blessed stroke of luck – and I quickly stepped inside, shutting the door behind me as lightly as I could. The room looked much like mine had, though it was obviously nicer for visiting royalty. There was a four-poster bed against one wall, a desk on one side, and an armoire, one door open, a few steps away from where I stood. Where was the box from my vision? I could hardly see through the darkness; what if he didn't have it after all? Fortunately, the king hadn't been unpacked yet. I could see, plain as day, each one of his bags sitting where some absentminded servant had left them; I wouldn't have to go searching through _all_ of his belongings, and even if they were oddly placed within the bags, he might just think that a servant had packed them that way. Surely, though, he would have unpacked some things himself. His room was still neat as a pin, but I could see some things, such as a set of shaving implements, already sitting out on the bed. And if I were to… my eyes wandered from the bed to the desk, and I smiled. I knew where the box was.

Fumbling around in the top drawer of the desk, I found the box; labeled clearly with the royal seal of Libonessen, it had been left unlocked. I breathed a sigh of relief and quickly opened it, grabbed the proposal, and shoved the box back inside the drawer. Hurriedly, I put the proposal into the pocket of my gown and pushed it down, hard. What did the monarchs of the Bright Isles care if it was a little wrinkled? I was almost to the door when the handle rattled.

I froze, my eyes wide, hand clamped onto the doorknob so that whoever was on the other side couldn't open it. He was back. It wasn't Ariana; it couldn't be. The room was darkest in the corner and my clothes happened to be dark gray, but my hair, my skin… it was too light, much to light. I couldn't simply blend in. And, as a muffled curse came from outside, I saw it: the armoire. It was hardly three paces away, and I stretched my leg towards it as I recognized the high, reedy voice; Lord Griffyn. _Oh, of course_, I thought bitterly as I reached up with my other arm for the armoire door. And, three, two, one… I let go of the doorknob just in time to swing myself up inside the wardrobe, pulling the painted door shut so that I could still see a sliver of the room. With any luck, he wouldn't see me.

Muttering, Lord Griffyn prowled into the room, looking for something. I waited, my heart pounding so hard I was sure he could hear it, eyes wide with terror, trying not to breathe.

There was a moment in which he glanced towards the armoire, and I was positive that he had seen me; I forced myself to stay still, forced myself to keep steady. After a moment, Lord Griffyn simply picked a quill from the arrangement on the desk, took another glance around the room, and then left, shutting the door behind him with a snap.

For a second, I couldn't move; I could barely breathe. Then, as the minutes ticked by, it became clear that Lord Griffyn wasn't coming back. I eased the door to the wardrobe open and tumbled to the floor, shaking, my heart still frantically pounding. I was safe. I was safe.

I got to my feet shakily, and slid out into the corridor, closing the door to King Braxton's room with a small snap. I could still hear Ari's silvery laughter from down the corridor – she had no idea how close I'd come, no idea at all. Where was she? I had to wonder, following the sound of her voice and hoping that I didn't look _too _pale. But no – I had to be going the wrong way, this wasn't right. I checked each room I came to, and each time I could have sworn I heard her voice inside it. Maybe if I had been more familiar with illusion and magic, I would have realized what was going on – as it happened, I wasn't, and so I kept following until I found myself in Mage Joaquin's study.

Suddenly there was a hand thrown around my face, and I thrashed reflexively, kicking out and back until I hit something; whoever it was let me go, and I dropped to my knees. There was Ariana next to me against that mirror, suddenly screaming, her eyes wide, pleading, and there was Lord Griffyn, clutching his knee, eyes furious. The air left my lungs. _Caught_.

And as I saw Lord Griffyn's mouth start to shape words, my eyes snapped up and before I knew what I was saying, I was blurting out whatever it was in the Goblin tongue, _up travel to sea-mountain for kiss and buckets_ _of rain live up_ and then added the first name I saw on the map positioned above his head, Uhyre Forest. Just as a bolt of blue fire from Lord Griffyn's fingertips engulfed me, Ari had grabbed me and we were falling, falling, and the air was turning wet and cold and then something had slammed into us and we were crashing and back and forth and it stung and just before I hit the ground I knew I was going to die.

**And so… yes! I am so sorry for the delay. When I wrote the original story, I didn't want to write these two chapters; I sort of skipped over them and went on with the rest. The next chapters will be much, much faster, I promise. Thank you for being so patient! Oh, and don't worry, the whole hierarchy of mages, wizards, and warlocks will be explained soon.**

**~piratesswriter**


	9. Chapter Nine

**Hey, all! Hope you enjoy! Thanks to Bingo7 and Ellsbeta for reviewing.**

**Chapter Nine**

**Ariana**

I awoke under a log on what I assumed was the next morning, sore all over and covered in filth. My throbbing legs hurt just as badly as my face, where I could feel a wide cut, stiff with dried blood. Groaning, I turned my head and opened my eyes painfully. Dazzlingly bright and dotted with clouds, the sky glared down at me through the treetops as I pulled myself agonizingly off of the ground. It looked like we'd fallen through the branches; there were several branches broken up ahead, and I was suddenly grateful to be alive. My hair had come loose last night; no wonder that I'd felt so heavy, I thought wryly as I picked my favorite hair ribbon off the ground. _Damn_, I swore as I saw the shards of broken mirror; the original frame was intact, if a little dirty, but the glass was clearly broken. We were stuck in a forest. But which one? Geography had never been my strong point, and I'd always suspected that Marielle was slightly dyslexic, at least when it came to locations. Wonderful.

The forest was still, save for an occasional snatch of birdsong; whatever area we were in, it wasn't densely populated. I heard a sudden noise and started, turning around to realize that Marielle, still asleep (and hopefully not out cold), looked about as bad as I felt. Her sleeves completely gone, Marielle's arms were scratched and covered in blood, and the pale purple of a bruise was beginning to appear on her forehead. Poor thing, I thought guiltily, remorse overcoming me. If I hadn't insisted we steal the parchment… I shuddered, trying not to remember Lord Griffyn. Quickly, I shed my dressing gown, or what was left of it, and tried to dab at the blood on my lady-in-waiting's arms while wondering what to do next.

The first course of action, besides finding help, was to decide where exactly we were going. I had my dagger, tied in my pocket, and a pouch full of coins, hidden in another. I could pay for an inn and probably for new clothes… for a few days. And then what? I had no idea where we were, and Braxton's threat back at the castle echoed in my ears. We couldn't just sit here any longer – we needed to move.

Rustling from behind me sounded suddenly, scattering my thoughts, and I tensed as I rotated, trying to find the culprit. Reaching slowly under what was left of my skirts, I unsheathed the blade and held it out, advancing towards the offending bush with a look of what I hoped was ferocity. "Who's there?" I called, my voice rough and hoarse. "I warn you – I'm armed!"

"Don't!" came a small voice, and a brown and red blur rolled out of the bush in front of me. I dropped the dagger as I jumped back, screaming as the thing stood up and screamed back. It was a moment (Marielle woke up and joined the screaming) before, at last, I realized what was in front of me: a little girl. She was only about nine or ten, her long red hair loose (formerly bound in the kerchief that now hung off one ear) and her brown dress rumpled from her tumble through the bushes.

"Stop, stop, stop!" I shouted, my face burning as the cut sliced open again. I held up a hand to demonstrate as Marielle clambered out of the log and to my side. "What is going on?" she asked, her voice cranky. "Ari, who is this? Why are we screaming?" Though Marielle looked as though she would like to hit something, the child's green eyes were wide with fear, and her voice shook as she started to speak.

"Are – are you ghosts? Or nightshades? If you are, be careful, because I'm a dangerous witch!" The girl, her voice lilted with a pleasant country sound, sounded as if she had suddenly remembered the last part of her sentence, and, abandoning her frightened persona, stood fiercely before us. In one hand, I saw, she carried a basket, and from it she drew a small, thin stick. "I can vanquish you with a single word!" she cried, brandishing it in my face.

"No! No, no, no… we're not ghosts or nightshades or… anything," I hurried to make that as plain as possible; though I doubted that this little witch could cause us much trouble, she might have relatives who weren't so harmless. "My name is…" I hesitated, wondering if I should tell her the truth. For a moment, I opened my mouth to say that I was Viola, a servant from the local lord's house, whoever it was… but glancing once at her honest eyes, I closed it again and sighed. What more did I have to lose? "My name is Ariana, and this is Marielle," I introduced us quickly, leaving out the titles. "As you can see, we need to get somewhere where we can get cleaned up, and soon. Can you help us…?"

"Hannah," the girl answered, nodding slowly. "My name is Hannah, daughter of Healer Susanna and Salus. My parents are healers, and they can help you." – optimistically.

"That's a nice name," Marielle commented, smiling at her and somehow wincing at the same time. She glanced at me, her face suddenly dismayed as she noticed the mirror, and I bit my lip. We were definitely stuck. Still, Marielle got to her knees and began to collect the shards, placing them in her pocket; I took the handle and placed it in my own.

"Thank you," Hannah replied quietly before tilting her head and squinting at us. "Yep, you're good," she pronounced a moment later while Marielle and I shot each other a _look_. "I could see your auras. Hers is blue with purple on the edges and yours is blue with red," Hannah explained, accompanying this by an eye roll that I did not much care for. "That's my Talent."

For witches or warlocks, Talents are rather rare, and run in families; a witch with a Talent will have an ability that no one else in the world possesses. It can be something as ordinary as having the ability to perform excellent cleaning spells or something as extraordinary as turning substances into gold, but it is only realized after the witch or warlock has started to use his or her powers. Either way, it was unusual to find such a young girl with a full realization of her gifts, and I marveled as she spun deftly around and set off in the direction she had come from.

"Well, come on!" she gestured as she turned around. "Mam usually starts on her rounds in around an hour. She'll be able to send out one of my sisters if we get back in time, but if we don't, you'll have to ask Louisa." Hannah pronounced the word _Louisa _the way some people typically say words like "imbecile" or "vomit." Lovely. A rival healer? She had to be.

With those charming words, Hannah loped nimbly along, passing over fallen logs and by the enormous piles of brush as if she had been doing it all her life – which, I had to keep reminding myself, she probably had been. Unlike both Marielle and myself, however; we panted and trudged our way through the woods, getting annoyed with the cheery birdsong and the happily whistling hunters that passed us by. "Not much farther now," Hannah announced as we passed a sign informing us that we were nearing a village. That was one of Mother's laws, I thought, and bit back a smile; she'd been irritated that while traveling she never knew in what village she ended up, and so a few years ago, she'd ruled that each village, town, or city needed to be labeled via wooden sign. The sign, still new, stated that we had just entered the village of Riverside, Marquia, and upon realizing where we were, I gasped. "Marielle, we're right on the border," I hissed to her as Hannah carried on, oblivious.

"Really?" she turned towards me, concerned, as we navigated around a series of large palm branches.

"We can get back relatively easily. There is a city close to here; only a day by carriage, and a few days' walk for us. We can travel there, send word to Father, and get back home in only a week. It isn't a problem."

"Ari, I don't understand what that accomplishes," she turned to me, confused. "We escaped only to hand ourselves back in?"

"I don't know what else to do!" I whispered furiously, blinking away the tears that had sprung unexpectedly to my eyes. I felt Marielle's hand on my shoulder – her equivalent of a hug – and wiped at my eyes. No crying. I couldn't cry about this.

"We can think about it on the way," she whispered as I wiped at the tears with my palms, "But we can't go home until we've figured everything out. _Ugh!_" she shouted, suddenly angry, as the trailing end of her skirt was dragged through a particularly large mud puddle.

Marielle, clearly frustrated, stopped and ripped at the hem of her dress. Yanking with both hands, she pulled the dressing gown and the trailing end of the skirt off completely, smearing both with the blood from her hands, and exposing her ankles. I opened my mouth to point the latter out to her (_Scandalous!_ Mother would say) but, seeing the look on her face, promptly shut it again.

We had by now entered the village; I tried to keep my eyes on the bright red of Hannah's hair underneath her kerchief while also looking around at the activity. Unlike the city I'd grown up in, the village was much smaller, and a lot less crowded, with only three or four people on the streets. The dirt road, mostly empty save for a few old women, hobbling on canes and pointing, was lined with several shops; tanners, taverns, butchers, seamstresses, bakeries, and even shoemakers. I hadn't ever really spent much time in the capital city

As we rounded the corner, passing the old women who pointed and whispered at Marielle's ankles and, no doubt, my nightgown, I came face-to-face with the crowning glory of the village: the river. Tearing powerfully over the jutting rocks, still swollen from springtime rains, the river seemed to have a life of its own. Marquia didn't have much flowing water; where I'd grown up, we had peaceful lakes and quiet ponds, but no roaring oceans or exceptionally violent rivers, and I watched in silence, both awed and almost frightened, as we crossed the wooden bridge. Quickly, I glanced at Marielle to see what she was thinking, and she caught my eye, smiling. She loved to swim, and I knew that while she couldn't use this river, the sight of it still made her happy.

"And, that's my house, right up there!" Hannah announced, stepping off the bridge and onto a dirt path with a little leap. I looked away from Marielle and up toward the house – to my immense relief, it was a comfortable-looking cottage, settled into the trees as if it were a bird's nest. A water wheel, spun by a thin stream that had been channeled from the river, rotated near the side, and I could see two small girls sitting in the front yard. "Alyssa! Jocasta!" Hannah called shrilly, starting to run for the children, her basket swinging wildly. "Has Mam left yet?" I jogged after her, wincing with every step I took - pain shot through my legs every time I moved a muscle.

"Now, Hannah Douglas, what is going on here?" The door to the house opened with a bang, and a woman stood in the door. She wasn't tall, but her very presence was commanding; though I am a king's daughter, rarely had I ever seen someone with that kind of innate authority. She was dressed in a plain brown dress and a white apron as if she were ready for work, her red hair tied up in a plain cap. It was a far cry from what the stiff uniforms the healers at home donned, but in a way I liked it better – she looked as if she had thoughts and feelings and personality instead of the urge to chop off any bleeding limbs.

"Mam, I found them out in the woods, and they need your help, and –" Hannah started to explain, but her mother cut her off.

"Ah, yes. Welcome, travelers – my name is Susanna Douglas, and I'm the best healer in the village, as I'm sure Hannah told you," she eyed her daughter until Hannah nodded, and I remembered the reference to Louisa, the other healer. Satisfied, Susanna continued. "What are your names?"

"I'm –" once again, I hesitated, and left out our titles. As I've said before, it is socially taboo for nobles in Marquia to associate with commoners, and I hated being treated as if I were something to be especially admired or fawned over. And the way some were afraid of me. That was the worst part. "Ariana, and this is my sister Marielle. As you can see, ma'am, we were… in the woods last night, and…"

"Come inside, girls. Evelyn!" she turned abruptly and called inside the house. "I need you to do the rounds today; I have business here. Thank you, Hannah."

"Yes, we both thank you, darling girl," Marielle smiled. As we trooped into the cottage after Susanna, Hannah and her sisters running off to play, we passed the older daughter, Evelyn. One glance gave me the impression that she was simply _pale_. Her red hair was pale and straight, her face pale and sad, and even her (rather improper, it must be admitted) dress, pale brown with a darker apron, made her pale skin look washed out. Marielle and I nodded to her politely as we passed, and she offered a cruel snicker and a smirk – probably at Marielle's hem (or lack thereof), but who knows. _How rude_, I thought as Marielle stuck her tongue out at Evelyn's retreating form.

"If anyone asks, we're half-sisters and our mothers are both dead," I hissed in Marielle's ear as we followed Susanna, and she nodded. True, we looked nothing alike, but this was the best I could come up with. Lying was not a talent of mine, and I felt guilty now, but really, this was for the Douglas family's own protection. I felt a chill spread from my shoulders as I imagined Braxton, here – in this innocent, picturesque landscape. I could not let that happen; as a future ruler, I had a duty to fulfill. We were going to sort out this mess… we just had to make a plan.

***

Marielle and I were very grateful to Susanna and her family; their kindness was above and beyond anything I had experienced before, based simply on the fact that she had no idea who I was. I had the suspicion that, even if she had known, she would not have treated us one iota differently. As for the healing, Susanna had filled two large tubs with water from the stream and let us bathe (for which I applauded her), and after that, had lent us some of her daughter's clothes – and I discovered, much to my satisfaction, that they were just as comfortable as the expensive gowns I'd been forced to don for years, with a lot less petticoats. As soon as we had dressed, Susanna started in on our various injuries – I was just pleased that it was mainly cuts, bruises, and pulled muscles; after all, I'd been afraid that I had cracked my ribs from the fall.

For a scratch on my face, which really looked a lot worse than it was, Susanna applied a thick yellow paste and told me to sit on the sunny portion of the deck for a quarter of an hour, and then the cuts would be healed; for Marielle's arms, it was much the same process. From time to time, one of her daughters – I lost count of how many there were – would drift onto the porch to chat with us, asking about our family and our circumstances. Fortunately, Marielle took over the lying, and while our cover story certainly wasn't foolproof, it was fairly believable. As long as she could remember what she said, we would be fine.

Susanna had appeared in the doorway as the quarter hour ended, and watched with an amused expression as I automatically got to my feet. When I reached up to brush my hair out of my eyes, I realized that the gunk on my face had vanished. "Oh, my…" The scratches had disappeared without my noticing, and when I placed a hand up to my forehead, and realized that the bruise there was gone, too. It was as if when I stood up, I had left all my aches and pains behind me. Marielle stood as well, running a hand over her arms. Susanna had assured us that the scarring, if any, would be light; more like pale pink lines on our skin. To my surprise, I found that I barely cared.

"Thank you_ very _much, ma'am, for your hospitality and your kindness." I bobbed a quick curtsy. "I do have money for you, I –" I hurriedly walked over to the pile in which we had left our clothes, starting to sift through it to find my little bag of coins.

"No, thank you, girls; that won't be necessary. Hospitality really is a common practice around here, and I'm sure that you'll repay us in another way," Susanna declared, chuckling. "You must be exhausted; we have an attic upstairs, for visitors. You may rest there for now. Upstairs and to the left."

"Thank you," this time, it was Marielle who spoke. "Are there any inns where we can stay for the night?"

"Actually," Susanna looked apologetic, and our spirits sank, "we do have one, above the larger tavern, but it's rather disreputable and the tavern is closed for repairs anyhow. I wouldn't allow my daughters to stay there, and I don't recommend it to my clients either, so I would be more than happy to have you stay here for the night."

"Really?" I asked tentatively, taking a step back towards the pile of rags, "Because we could just stay there; we'll be fine."

"Of course," Susanna carried on, gesturing back towards the inside of the house. "We take supper at sunset, and I'm sure that you'll be more than well-rested by then. Now, I've got to go and catch Evelyn – she was just licensed last week, she'll need my help. And… Ariana, you said?" She asked suddenly, and I felt my face go bloodless. _She knows_, I thought, as my throat had constricted. Once I nodded cautiously, Susanna smiled, satisfied. "That's my niece's name," she explained. "It's a small world, isn't it?" With a flash of white teeth, Susanna had gone.

"Oh, goodness," Marielle whispered, turning towards me. "I thought we were done for."

"I know!" I exclaimed with an exhilarated sigh. "They don't believe that we're sisters, either, do they?"

Marielle winced, not wanting to tell me that I was right. "Well, we're practically sisters, anyway," she conceded, turning towards the door. "I mean," she flashed me a grin, "we live in the same house, eat the same food, and have to obey the same parents. We just aren't related by blood."

I laughed. "I know." Falling silent, Marielle started to move towards the staircase inside. I followed, trying to shake the uncomfortable feeling that I was getting complacent.

***

When I awoke, it was just barely sunset; still, I went downstairs and found that dinner was close to ready. Marielle had been helping the older girls in the house cook; tonight's food was, as far as I could tell, some sort of beef stew with bread. She had helped to knead it, she explained proudly. I smiled, and tried not to wince when Irene, the one closest to my age, whistled so shrilly that I feared my eardrums would burst, and the rest of the household came running. Tatiana was the eldest at twenty; next came Cassandra, who was eighteen, then the seventeen-year-old Evelyn, her twin Irene, and then, finally, Nerissa. All were tall, thin, and auburn-haired; most had brown eyes, though Irene had green eyes as Hannah did. The youngest girls were Hannah and Jocasta. Susanna entered just after little Jocasta did, and last to come was Healer Salus, a tall, silent man who looked so out-of-place in a family full of women that at first I wanted to laugh aloud.

I stood, waiting for Marielle to bring me the plate and cup so that I could serve myself, for a few seconds – and then I remembered. I was a commoner now. It felt rather strange, doing something that others had always done for me, but it wasn't truly awful. I mean, as far as duties go, I was suddenly grateful that I did not have to clean my own rooms. The idea had never really occurred to me before. Anyhow, I collected my own stew and milk, and five minutes later, we sat around the table, me sandwiched between Evelyn and Marielle.

We were listening to Tatiana tell an entertaining anecdote about her future husband, James Baker, when the door opened and a young man entered. I looked up; a _saunter_ is almost the best word I have to describe it. _A brother?_ I wondered, pitying him for being the only boy (besides the silent Healer Salus) in a family full of women. But no – the Douglas' all either had brown eyes, save for Hannah and Tatiana's green ones, and his blonde hair stood out from the mix of reddish brown. This boy's (man's?) were a blue color that seemed to glow in his pale face. He was thin, but held a surprising vitality that made it seem as though he was constantly in motion, even when he paused in front of the table.

"Tristan, you are exactly eight minutes late for supper," Irene announced, looking from the clock on the wall to the boy with a triumphant expression. "And that means that it isn't _my_ turn to wash the dishes anymore."

"Irene, please, you know it isn't my fault that you simply can't whistle loud enough. Don't forget who taught you how," the boy-called-Tristan responded, his eyes dancing, an impish grin on his face.

"Well, that's the rules," Hannah, who had gotten up and was passing by him, stated firmly. Tristan, in sudden display of spirit, turned and grabbed Hannah by the waist, raising her into the air and twirling her around before setting her back on her feet.

"Come on, Hannah, I know you'll help me," he begged as she giggled.

"No, I don't think so." Hannah's grin lit up her face as she wriggled away.

"Tristan, do you need anything to eat?" Susanna finally broke in, smiling. "And the girls are right, it is now your turn to do the dishes."

"Well, I don't really need anything, but, ah… I don't have a plate," he stated, finally noticing Marielle and myself. "Who are you and why are you eating my food?" he asked, a smile to show that he was joking illuminating his features.

"I'm Marielle, and that's Ariana, and –" Marielle started and stopped abruptly as I opened my mouth.

"Your mother, Healer Susanna, was kind enough to let us stay here tonight. We are travelers… delivering a message to the Walled City." The way he looked me straight in the eyes was unnerving; I could feel the words slipping back down my throat.

"Uh… that's nice, but she isn't my mother," Tristan pointed out, reaching into a cabinet to retrieve a bowl, and I realized why Hannah hadn't wanted to set the table by hand; there were too many bowls to count.

"He is my apprentice," Salus, who sat at the head of the table, spoke for the first time that night in a deep, slow voice.

"Oh," I answered, looking down into my bowl of stew and hating the way I couldn't think of anything better to say.

"What are you apprenticed to become?" Marielle asked thickly, her mouth full of bread. I kicked her under the table, and she turned to glare at me as Evelyn stood.

"I am a warlock and a potionmaker, and I am teaching young Tristan the tricks of the trade," Salus stated after a pause.

"His apprenticeship is almost over," Evelyn said, almost smugly, as she slipped by him on her way to put her plate in the kitchen sink. "And then, he'll be out on his own." She slid her hand over shoulder, but he took no notice. I caught the look on Marielle's face; she was raising an eyebrow in distaste. Had I missed something?

"Will you miss me?" Tristan asked, taking her chair and looking around with the best hurt, slapped-puppy begging face that I had ever seen.

"No!" came the answer from the older girls as they stopped eating momentarily to shout. Evelyn smirked as she tied an apron from the kitchen around her waist. "I'm off to the tavern," she called over her shoulder, and her mother nodded absently. I recalled what she said about the tavern being rather unseemly, and wondered what sort of battle had raged to allow Evelyn to work there. As kind as Susanna looked, there was something about her that told me all hell would break loose if she were to ever get angry. In that case, then, I had to admire Evelyn for her courage.

"I'll miss you, Tristan!" Hannah called, giggling again. I suppressed a smile, wondering wryly if the little girl had a bit of a crush on him.

"I know you love me, ladies. And what about you?" he asked, suddenly turning to me. "When I've left, will _you_ miss me?"

"I don't know if it matters," I answered, placing my hand down on the table. "As I probably won't be here past tomorrow."

"But say you knew me," he persisted lightly, his eyes locked with mine. This was getting rather disconcerting.

"I – I don't know," I fumbled for words as my typical remarks left me again, shaking my head slightly and laughing nervously.

"I doubt it." With that atmosphere-shattering comment, he started in on his bread. I blinked. Um, ex_cuse_ me?

"Why do you say that?"

"Well, isn't it obvious? You aren't a village wench. You've been raised in a better setting than this – why would you care what happens to me?"

"Excuse me, but I do care very much about village people," I stated, suddenly indignant. How dare he suggest such a thing? I'd spent my life learning how to care for the citizens of Marquia, and what had he been doing? Learning trivial tricks and cleaning spells? "And it is very rude of _you_ to say otherwise." The others at the dinner table had vanished; it was just myself and this person Tristan, locked into an argument that I knew was pointless and yet was suddenly desperate to win.

"It's rude of _you_ to imply that I am less important than you are," he pointed out, a corner of his mouth quirking up in something of a smile. I bristled; he was enjoying this. He'd set a trap and I'd walked straight into it.

"Mother says I shouldn't speak to impudent, foolish little wizards," I used my nursemaid's best, falsely pleasanttone of voice.

"Oh, right, your protective parents. And she raised you to ignore commoners such as myself?" I felt my face go white. Did he know –? He couldn't, I was panicked, trying to calm myself.

"Oh, and where are _your_ parents?" I snapped, "Sitting in some hut somewhere?"

"I wouldn't know," Tristan shot back. "I don't know where they are."

Every word I had on the tip of my tongue disappeared as his eyes made contact with mine, and my stomach turned inside out as I inhaled sharply.

"That's an awkward conversation," Marielle commented, bringing me back with a start. She, of course, had been listening in the whole time – unlike the rest of the family, who had gone back to their little conversations after Hannah had told Tristan that she would miss him. "I think that I should give it a number seven on my list," Marielle added decisively, scooping up the remains of her stew.

"You have a list?" Tristan asked, turning away from me and looking at Marielle. I still sat there, feeling as if the world was moving around me but I was stationary. _What just happened to me?_ I wondered, watching the back of Tristan's head as he politely listened to Marielle chatter on before turning away halfway through the explanation to finish his bread.

***

As I snuggled under the blankets in the attic two hours later, I thought of the Douglas family, and then of mine – and how they would have reacted by now. Aunt Ivy is probably in disgrace, I realized, feeling worse. And poor Ben! Charged with guarding us, he may have lost her respect since we'd vanished. But surely he'd figured it out by now… again, I remembered the mirror, its shards sitting in the pocket of Marielle's dress; I still had the handle. Maybe we could find someone to mend them.

"What do you think of them?" Marielle asked suddenly from the other side of the room, interrupting my thoughts.

"They are… very kind, good people," I answered, rather bemused and deciding not to count Tristan as part of the family, at least not for the time being. "It was wonderful of her to take us in the way she did. Why do you ask? Don't you think so?"

"No, no, it was! I really like this family. These people are wonderful. It's just…" she trailed off, and I rolled over to face her, pushing myself up on my elbow.

"Evelyn the whore," I guessed, and her lips twitched, as if she longed to smile but couldn't allow herself to. "Did you see her dress, and the way she threw herself at that _boy_ Tristan all evening? Disgraceful," I pronounced, partially for the purpose of speaking my mind and partially for the purpose of watching Marielle squirm. "Absolutely disgraceful, in this respectable home. She acts no better than a common tavern wench. Which she is, I suppose." _And Tristan himself_, I began in my mind, but thought better of actually saying anything.

"Well, that's just _lovely_, Ari. What if she heard you?" Marielle hissed at me, scowling, but her lips were twitching.

"We're in the attic, Marielle. I doubt there's anyone up there. But still – you know we can't stay here," I said softly. "Every moment we do stay just puts this family in danger."

"I know," she acknowledged softly, shrinking back into her blankets and rolling to face the wall, away from me. "I know. And Ari?" she asked just as I'd started to drift off.

"Hmm?"

"Tristan is _lovely_, too."

I threw the pillow at her.

***

The next morning, I joined Marielle and Nerissa in the kitchen to prepare breakfast. I'd never cooked before, but I didn't have to do that much – I just cleaned up what she needed me to, using water from the kitchen pump, and occasionally stirred something. Marielle helped to bake. "Thank you for your help," the girl said softly as she stirred the eggs in the scuffed black pan.

"It is the least that we can do," Marielle assured her, attempting to arrange biscuits _just so_ on the tray and stopping guiltily when she noticed us looking at her.

"Are you leaving today?" Nerissa asked, removing the eggs from immediate heat.

"I'm afraid we are," I answered before Marielle could start on a story about how the letter we were supposed to deliver was really a spell to save someone who was dying of a mysterious disease in Gurtak and therefore urgent. "But we are much obliged to your family for your hospitality."

"You are quite welcome; you've been very kind guests."

There was a peaceable silence between the three of us (besides Marielle, who was currently singing under her breath and taking tiny dance steps across the floor) as I considered how nice this had been. It had been wonderful to find a refuge in the terror that had plagued my dreams for weeks now, but as soon as I had woken up that morning, I'd made plans to leave almost immediately. It was not safe for or fair to the Douglas family; every second we stayed with them was a second closer to Braxton finding us.

"_Father_!" We all jumped as the silence was shattered as Jocasta, the youngest of the sisters, burst through the front door. "Father! _Fatherfatherfather_!" she shouted, running right through the kitchen and back into the hallway. She had been gripping a piece of parchment tightly in one fist, I'd noticed, but nothing else seemed remarkable. She was a sweet child, and I had helped her to identify certain herbs in the garden the day before. She was learning.

"Jocasta, I need the apples –" Nerissa tried before sighing and going back to serving the eggs. "We don't usually eat breakfast together, but I always like to have a nicely cooked meal," she explained as she spooned the spongy yellow mixture onto plates.

"I wonder what all that was about," Marielle said after a moment, staring down at her breakfast of biscuits, eggs and water.

"Susanna!" came the cry throughout the house, and Nerissa stood.

"That's Father," she said, starting for the door to the hallway. Not to be left behind, I quickly followed, Marielle a foot behind me.

We found Salus standing with Tristan below the staircase, reading the parchment with trembling fingers. The sisters stood beside him, all of them trying to read over his shoulder. "What is going on? Tell me what all the fuss is about!" Susanna commanded, marching down the stairs.

"Susanna, there's a competition," Tristan said excitedly, looking up. "For skill in spellcasting, ability to think on your feet, potionmaking – everything! It's for all the Marquian warlocks – and Master Salus is invited! He's invited to compete!"

"What? When? Where is it?" Susanna's voice softened, and she hurried to grab the paper, taking it from Tristan nearly as soon as she reached the floor.

"It's in the Walled City, about a week's journey from here… and it's in about a month," Salus said quietly, shaking his head. "That is where you are going as well," he stated, gesturing at Marielle and me. Surprised, I turned towards Marielle, caught the quick glance, and nodded once.

"Yes, it is," I could feel a slow smile begin to creep through my lips. Now we had an escort; it was perfect. A male companion – especially a warlock – would keep us safe both from bandits and Braxton's thugs. We'd be fine. "But I am not going to go," Salus decided, sitting heavily upon the wooden stair and letting out a sigh.

"_What?_" Was the collective response throughout the room; his daughters and Tristan looked especially disappointed. What would this competition do for their father's reputation? I wondered.

"I am older; my knees are bad, and I'm not going to make the journey. Instead," he stopped, and turned to face the apprentice, "Tristan shall go in my place." My eyes widened, and the room went dead silent. Though I knew little of village apprenticeships, this almost certainly meant that –

"You've completed the apprenticeship. If you do well in the competition, you will be released." Salus smiled, and patted the stunned Tristan on the arm.

"But my contract –" Tristan started, but Salus interrupted.

"– will be honored on both sides upon your return. I suggest that you leave now; the journey might take longer than you think, and I expect the city will be crowded. And, after all, you do have a reputation to build." Tristan let out a shout of joy before throwing his arms around his master; when Salus did not respond, he remembered his place and let go. Around us, the women of the house began to return to their duties – namely, sleeping or knitting. But I didn't move; I wanted to see how this worked out. Marielle and I needed to buy dresses and shoes, needed to finish eating, needed to collect our "things"… not necessarily in that order, but it all still had to be done.

"Um, thank you, Master Salus," Tristan hurriedly said from the ground, "Thank you. But wait," he got to his feet, confusion and then slight distaste entering his expression, "that means I'll be traveling with them?"

"Yes," Marielle stated happily, her confused expression clearing, "I suppose it does."

_Well_, I thought as my heart sank to my borrowed shoes and then rose to my throat at such a rapid speed I feared I would be sick, _this is going to be interesting._

***

We left only an hour later, Marielle and I thanking Susanna for all that she had done. In addition to giving us clothes, she had also lent us the boots that Evelyn and Tatiana had recently outgrown. "Let us pay you, really, for your trouble," I insisted, fumbling in my pocket (these ones sewn-in, to my relief) for the coins I'd brought.

"No – you'll need it if you're to stay at an inn for the next few nights," she made a face to show her disgust, as a child would, and I grinned. "Now, I've packed some food and given it to Tristan; it should hold you until the next village. He has the horse, as well, in case one of you gets tired."

"Thank you. A thousand times over, thank you." Marielle had said after I had thanked them, just as Tristan appeared in the doorway. There was a moment of goodbyes, in which each sister gave Tristan, strangely, a formal hug – save for Evelyn, who held it a second longer than seemed necessary, and Hannah, who all-but-tackled him. Susanna kissed Tristan on the forehead, and Salus shook his hand. Marielle and I stood quietly off to one side. It was apparent that this was some sort of rite of passage, at least amongst the peasants. I'd read, of course, about young men going out to seek their fortunes… but I had never actually thought of it actually happening, as it was usually preceded by some horrible calamity.

Anyhow, we did eventually leave; exiting the village, I could see the bloody hem of Marielle's (or, rather, _my_) dress, and decided to leave it. I had my letter, and the pieces of the mirror; we would be fine. We had to be. We started our trek in silence, one that went unbroken for exactly half an hour before Marielle started talking. "Half an hour?" she exclaimed, delighted, when I told her I'd timed it, "That's a new record!"

"Wonderful," I said unenthusiastically while Tristan made a small noise of assent. After she realized that we weren't really listening to her, Marielle spent much of the time talking to herself; her lips moved soundlessly (though words, in two or three different languages, occasionally escaped) as she either recited something or sang under her breath. I took it upon myself to gaze around at nature, as it seemed nobody else was, and just watched the day progress. In the early morning, the dewy grass was soft and slick underfoot and few birds dared to cautiously call out. The near-silence made me uneasy, and I was grateful as we moved into patches of sunlight. Hannah's talk the previous day of ghosts and nightshades I'd found amusing, but now I could see where her fear came from. At least two hours had passed when, hearing a stream up ahead, we decided to sit down and rest for a few minutes. Marielle offered to fill the flasks of water that Susanna had tucked into our picnic basket, and hurried off, frizzy hair bouncing.

"Is she crazy?" Were the first words out of Tristan's mouth as soon as Marielle was no longer within hearing distance.

"Excuse me?" I frowned even as I spoke. In the few times I'd spoken to him, it seemed as if those two words seemed to come up.

"Your friend, Marielle – is she psychotic?" Tristan's face held a hint of humor, and I sighed and rolled my eyes, both irritated and amused by the question. Fortunately, I was able to keep my mouth shut – whoever heard, I was dead.

"Crazy, yes – psychotic, no!" Marielle announced from behind him, and Tristan flinched. The expression on his face reminded me of the time my old nurse had caught me trying to steal a slice of cake from the kitchens – a mixture of shock, guilt, and delight all at once. "I talk to myself. It's not that unusual. Although I do talk more than anyone else back home," she added thoughtfully, looking not at all offended.

"Where I come from, words are valued if there are less of them," Tristan stated pointedly, taking a swig from his flask as his face resumed its normal expression.

"Same with me, except I doubt I'm valuable to very many people."

"Marielle! Don't say that about yourself. And she isn't crazy," I suddenly found my voice – before, it had been as though something had closed around my throat. "And –"

"And it's very rude of me to say such a thing. I know, I know. Please, spare me."

"Fine, then, _knave_," I snapped, getting to my feet and shaking back my hair. For some reason, it had come loose again, and I was afraid that it would catch on something. "Because I am quite sure that your vocabulary does not reach that far, I am going to tell you that _knave_ is a derogatory term for a rude young man of low social class and even lower morality."

"Painful, coming from you," Tristan remarked, getting to his feet and starting towards the horse. Still, he was smiling; he seemed to enjoy our sparring. "Now, look, this whole traveling together thing… is not working out, as you can see. So, how about I take Jess here and I ride to the competition alone, and never see you again?"

"You can't do that," Marielle cried, springing to her feet. I remained seated. Susanna had given us the map, and Tristan had left the picnic basket next to me. No matter if he took the horse; we had food, money, and weapons. At least, I did – Marielle had never mentioned keeping anything more threatening than the penknife she used to clean her fingernails.

"Of course I can," Tristan called, tossing a confused face back at her. "You don't need me for much, do you? We're just being annoyances to each other. You have food that'll last you to the next town, and I have a horse. You should get there before dark if you follow this path."

And with that, Tristan swung himself up onto the horse at the same time I stood up. The reality hit me then – if he did leave, we would be alone, two young females in unfamiliar territory. I knew that the woods in this area weren't known to be too dangerous, but several Marquia forests were notorious for harboring bandits and thieves. The last thing I wanted was to meet up with one of them… or with Braxton and Lord Griffyn. The way that wizard looked at me before we'd left… I shuddered at the thought, and found my voice.

"No, wait!" I had to force my lips to shape the words… why was it so hard to _talk_ around him? "Please. Don't just leave us," I begged, my eyes pleading as they connected with his. "I… I apologize. Please." _I'm afraid_.

"I…" he seemed to be at a loss for words (he hadn't anticipated me _begging_, though I suddenly had the irritating sense that this was a bluff) and as I held my breath, waiting for an answer, the forest suddenly fell silent – unnaturally so. Each bird in the branches above us abruptly stopped singing, and a flock of crows that had previously been sitting in a nearby oak tree took flight; if I hadn't been there, I never would have believed it. My heart expanded as my chest contracted, and I felt fear run down my spine. "Go," Marielle hissed, tense and afraid, turning and shoving me towards the denser, thicker bushes. "Get behind something. Now."

I obeyed, stumbling into a thicket while desperately praying that the cause for the stillness wasn't what I thought it was. I sank onto my stomach, hating the way my hair caught in the branches and trying to find a place where I could see out. Dimly, I could see through the lattice of the branches that Tristan had gotten back off of Jess and was sitting next to the picnic basket; Marielle was carefully sinking down next to him.

I froze as a copper-colored horse marched into the clearing, causing Jess to let out a whinny and take a step back. Tristan, apparently noticing nothing but the way his horse was acting up, quickly got to his feet to calm her, but Marielle had seen something different. I could see by the way she stiffened and pulled back slightly that the rider, a tall man wrapped in pale blue, must have some notoriety about him. She was good at reading people; maybe that was why she disliked living at court so much.

The rider spoke quickly to Tristan, ignoring Marielle, and when Tristan had given him an answer, the rider turned the horse back around and took off for wherever he'd come from at a gallop. I waited, then – for the sound to return to the forest, for life to continue the way it had gone on before. Finally, when the hoof beats had slowly faded away, I stood.

Shakily, I crawled out of the thicket, giving great tugs on my massive amounts of princess-hair when it caught and hating it more by the second. I stood there for a minute and a half, feeling ridiculous – I couldn't leave the thicket. "Marielle!" I said, loudly enough for her to hear and hopefully softly enough for it not to ring through the woods. She appeared, Tristan close behind her, and the look on her face was one of utter dismay.

"Ariana! Your beautiful hair!" she cried, distraught. "Oh, what have you done, what have you done…" she went on to mumble to herself in what sounded like the Goblin tongue, completely and utterly dismayed. I had to smirk at the unnecessary language switch; she loved to show off, even if she would never admit it.

"What did he say?" I asked as Marielle helped untangle me a moment later. "Who was it?"

"It was a mercenary," Tristan spoke quickly, looking at me pointedly. "And he was looking for someone."

"Obviously," Marielle snapped as she tried to pull a lock of hair out of the thorns. "Isn't that what mercenaries do? Ariana, I think we might have to –"

"Yes, but you heard him, Marielle. He was looking for someone who looked exactly like _her_," he jerked his head in my direction. "_He_ said she was of noble birth, had run away from Landworth Manor, wherever that is, and was not traveling alone."

There was a long, tense silence in which he stared at me accusingly before I finally sighed. "All right – all right. It's me. He's looking for me."

"Why?" Tristan asked immediately, something in his eyes sparking.

"Ariana, I think we're going to have to cut it out," Marielle said insistently, reaching into one of the pockets in my dress and removing the dagger. I paid her no heed – my mind whirled instead with what lie to use. Finally, I just gave up, sighing out an answer.

"Because… look, I can't explain it to you now, Tristan, all right? I'll wait until…"

"Until when? We're not going anywhere until I have an explanation," he stated, sitting down right where he was and folding his arms.

"There isn't time for explanations," I cried suddenly, stamping my foot and trying not to think about how much I resembled Lady Hattie's daughter Bridgette right then. This wasn't about her using Marielle's hair ribbons for her dog – this was serious. I was actually starting to get a little lightheaded. I put it up to frustration and continued to lean forward.

"Then who are you? Tell me," he commanded, imperious, and I was suddenly furious.

"You _dare_ to take that tone of voice with me?" I shouted, self-righteous anger swelling in my chest.

And of course, immediately after I did so, I pitched abruptly forward and right on top Tristan, knocking us both to the ground. Pulling back instinctively, I drew in a sharp breath as my eyes focused – there was three inches of air separating us, and that was it. Not including Braxton, I had never been so close to any man who was not related to me before.

"Sorry," Marielle squeaked from behind me as I hurried to stand, my hand going up to the back of my head. "Oh," I said weakly, reaching up to feel the hair that had taken me _eight years_ to grow out… and realizing that it was gone. "It's gone," I reiterated dumbly, running my fingers through my hair. I turned slowly to survey the black tangles that snarled the branches of the thicket, realizing that the hair that had once gone down to my knees now barely tickled my shoulders.

"Oh, Ari, I'm so sorry!" Her face anguished, I could see that Marielle was nearly in tears. "Oh, it was so lovely and long and… oh, it took you so long to grow it out… oh!" She sniffled once and began to blink rapidly, trying not to cry. Tristan, one eyebrow raised, looked back and forth, watching, _his_ face both amused and disturbed.

"No, Marielle, I… I like it, actually," I said hurriedly, realizing a split second later that I really did. "It's so… light!" I shook my head, allowing the uneven lengths to swing around my face. I giggled suddenly as Marielle turned a tearstained face toward me – "I feel like I've suddenly shed a burden," I exclaimed, throwing my arms around her and waiting for her to flinch. I loved hugs; after all, they are simple, easy gestures of affection. Marielle, who had never been very demonstrative, did not. "Thank you! Although I do wish you'd told me you were going to cut it," I added as an afterthought, taking a strangely shaky breath. "I could have at least kept my balance."

Marielle made an indignant noise and spun away, marching back towards the horse. "We should continue," she called, frustrated. I blinked in confusion. She hadn't said anything before, had she?

"What's wrong with her?" I mused aloud, offering a hand to help Tristan up. "I told you, I apologize. And as for my… identity, I suppose, I will tell you in the next town, when we stop for the night. I swear, on my honor as…" I paused. "On my honor."

He hesitated a moment before grunting, taking the hand and getting to his feet.

"Fine," he grumbled, putting on the classic sulky face – lower lip _slightly_ pushed out, eyes lowered, and a faint scowl etched on the brow. "But don't expect me to forget."

***

A day of walking through the forest really takes a toll on one; I realized this as I clung to the mane of the horse for dear life. Tristan held the reins and was guiding her along. "The village is only a mile away," Tristan said suddenly, glancing up at me. "We should be there by dusk."

"Oh, _joy_," Marielle commented sarcastically, stretching her arms as she walked. "I just can't wait."

"Look at those!" I suddenly had seen a small cluster of blue flowers growing at the base of a nearby tree. The green vines curled around by the roots, and the blossoms were ringed with white. "Oh, they are exquisite. I love flowers," I sighed as Tristan snorted. "What is it?" I asked, momentarily forgetting that I didn't want to speak to him.

"Oh, nothing. It's just that those particular flowers would kill you if you were to cut yourself on the thorns. Poisonous little buggers. Almost every plant has a medicinal purpose. Remember, most flowers do more than just look pretty."

I would have responded, but, looking down, something caught my attention. "Oh!" I exclaimed suddenly holding out my sleeve in dismay. "I'll need a new dress as soon as possible," I announced, suddenly saddened. And it wasn't even mine. "This one's torn."

"What the hell do you want me to do about it?" Tristan glanced at me strangely for a moment before deciding that I was probably kidding and chuckling. I wasn't joking, however, and looked to Marielle, offended.

"Ariana, I can mend it tonight," Marielle offered to smooth over Tristan's words and my indignation.

We continued in silence for a few moments, watching as the blue sky faded to swirling purple clouds streaked with pink. Around us, the birdsong ceased as crickets and frogs started up their own choruses, croaking and chirping as though dying to be heard. Finally, as if tortured by the harmony of hearing others speak without her own voice, Marielle opened her mouth.

"I hate frogs," she pronounced, glaring into the trees as though expecting to see the culprits of the noise glaring back.

"I like them," Tristan responded good-naturedly. "When I was younger I used to catch them and put them in jars."

"What did you do with them?" she asked, a trace of hope in her voice. Knowing Marielle, I was sure that she wished he had left the slimy things to suffocate… but from what little I knew of Tristan, I was sure that this wasn't the answer. He seemed to like animals almost as much as he did people – he went out of his way to avoid stepping on insects, and spoke to Jess whenever it was his turn to ride. It would have been sweet if he hadn't been so rude to me.

"I turned them into garter snakes and hid them in Evelyn and Tatiana's shoes," he answered promptly as Marielle fell back in horror. I shuddered. Snakes, especially the poisonous water ones, had been scarce at home; even so, traveling storytellers made them common villains, and I would never quite forget the day Bridgette had discovered one on the castle grounds.

"Well, it's no wonder they weren't sorry to see you go," I snorted, coming back to where Marielle and Tristan and I walked through the forest.

"Maybe," Tristan still sounded cheerful, so I just shut my mouth as we continued through the thinning trees. A moment later, I could see the lights ahead, and a tired smile pulled at the corners of my mouth. We had made it for the first day; in just a few more, we would be at the Walled City, and Marielle and I would continue to the capital… _home_.

**All right! So… review, please, darlings! Let me know what you thought!**


	10. Chapter Ten

**This chapter is shorter than the last few have been; I think that it's one of the original ones from when I wrote the story a year ago. Thanks so much to Bingo7 for reviewing!**

**Chapter Ten**

**Marielle**

The town we came to was very much like the one that Tristan hailed from, except rougher; uglier, somehow, I commented to Ariana later. Maybe it was just the absence of the river that purified Riverside, but as we crossed the town square, I shuddered. At twilight, there weren't many people in the shops anymore, but a few children ran past us, giggling madly and shouting. I hoped that they were on their ways home. Groups of men and even a few women were congregating outside a large tavern, and they eyed us as we passed. Personally, I found it deliciously ironic that Ariana and I attracted as much attention dressed as peasants as we did in rags – maybe it was the way we walked, sort of skittish and nervous, that gave our naivety away. Still, I shifted closer to Tristan as we passed, deciding to head for an inn that didn't look completely trashy a few doors down. It was one of the first times I'd been anywhere public without a male escort, usually a guard or my father. Suddenly, I missed Ben. No, I thought, casting around frantically for another subject, not here. Not now.

"I'm excited," Ariana announced excitedly, looking up as we drew nearer. "I've never stayed in an inn before."

"I've never left Riverside before," Tristan confessed as he reached into his pocket. "I hope I've got enough," he muttered halfway to himself, reaching into his pocket for coins as we approached a waiting stable boy.

"You usually give them a tip," I added helpfully, pulling a few bronze coins out of my own pocket and offering them to him. "One or two should be about right for us."

"And who are we?" asked Ariana dryly, giving me with a knowing glance. "This doesn't exactly look proper, you know… we're all… unrelated." She had chosen a rather weak word to suit her implications, and I fought the childish urge to snicker. Tristan snorted, but I smiled, glad that, for once in my life, I'd thought things through.

"Really, Ari, do you honestly think that I'm that stupid?" I said lightly over my shoulder as Tristan handed the stable boy the money and Ariana slid off. "I've got it figured out," I promised as she landed on the cobblestones with a rather unladylike thud.

"Thank you," Tristan called after the stable boy, who'd led Jess off to the stable behind the inn itself… which was massive, to say the least. Definitely larger than Tristan's cottage, the enormous building seemed to wrap around itself; it was probable that there was a courtyard in the center. Tentatively, I started for the door, and then stopped, turning around. "Look happy, both of you, please. Just smile." Ariana raised an eyebrow and adopted a smirk, while Tristan merely snorted again before putting on a banana-sized grin that hinted at insanity. No, I decided, vaguely disturbed, the smile screamed it.

"Ah… I suppose that's close enough. All right. Let's go." I turned back towards the door and swung it open, delighted in the tiny bell ringing overhead. Tristan took the door for Ariana, who was actually pleased by the gesture. I took a quick glance around the room, trying to get familiar with my surroundings. It felt warm and comfortable, with a fire roaring in the fireplace and guests sitting around a table. In front of me, however, was a bar, much like in a tavern – though the stools were empty, the landlord, an older man, maybe in his forties, stood behind the counter. He was busy wiping out glasses with a wet cloth, humming to himself. Attempting to create an air of confidence, I marched straight down towards him, Ariana and Tristan following behind.

"Hello," I said quickly, flashing a smile and mentally kicking myself for not using a different accent than my own. The landlord looked up and nodded once. "Are you the landlord?" I had to double-check; if I were wrong I'd look stupid and ruin everything.

"Yeh," he answered in a hoarse voice that sounded almost like a croak. Frogs, I thought, and giggled.

"My name is Mary, and I'd like two rooms, please. One's for me, and the other's for my brother Tristan and his wife, Ari –" I stopped halfway through the word, realizing almost too late that it might not be wise to go around saying Ariana's name. "Ari," I hurriedly coughed into my sleeve, checking Tristan and Ari's reactions behind me. Surprisingly, Tristan's expression hadn't wavered – he still looked stupidly happy. Ariana had adapted her smile and looked tired but content; it was only the way she smiled more out of one side of her mouth that made me know I would regret this.

" 'Ow long?" Two syllables. Well, it's a step up from one.

"Just for tonight; we've already stabled the horse. How much does it cost, please?" I dug in my pocket for the gold coins and closed my fingers on them with relief.

"Three gold, one silver." Disinterested, the landlord went back to scrubbing out the glasses.

I made a face, quirking my lips to one side before dropping the coins on the counter and waiting for the keys. "That's a lot of money," Tristan commented in a strong imitation of my own accent from behind me. "I know," I whispered as a grubby hand reached out to take the coins. Before he could get them, though, Tristan had stepped in front of me and slapped a hand down over the metal.

"I'd like the keys to the rooms, now," he stated firmly, locking eyes with the landlord. The weak blue eyes hesitated before their owner dropped to his knees, presumably to search. There was scuffling and muffled cursing before finally he withdrew the two keys.

"There. Two keys. Four coins," he croaked, shoving them towards us with one hand and gesturing sluggishly with the other. "Rooms Twelve and Thirteen. All right?"

"Yes. Come along, darling. Oh, and Mary, do hurry," Tristan smiled, taking Ariana's arm and pulling her away, leaving me to scramble after them.

***

Our room, number twelve, was fairly pleasant – and that was surprising, considering whom our landlord was. The clear window was framed with curtains, and a lantern burned in one corner. A large wooden bed stood in the middle; the bedcovers were a nice pale blue, and two pillows sat neatly at the headboard. On the nightstand was a washbasin, for which I was definitely grateful; I felt filthy after a day in the woods. Heaving a contented sigh, I dropped the bags on the wooden floor. Ariana sat down upon the bed and smiled once before remembering and flashing me an irritated glare.

"Well, I'm sorry!" I apologized, casting my eyes on the floor. "Princess, he might not have lent us the rooms."

"That man would lend an ogre a room," she snapped, flopping back down upon the bed. "And to say that we're married! Really, why did you do that? Why couldn't I have been his sister, too?"

"You don't look alike," I pointed out, grateful that I had an opportunity to. She was a good actor, judging by what I'd seen just a few moments earlier, but a terrible liar. "I think that the landlord might have found it just a little odd that three people say they're related but one of them looks nothing like the others." I turned and began opening the bags, removing the tattered rags that we'd worn during our trip through the mirror and placing them on the ground. Yes, I'd kept it – the green skirt from Ariana's nightgown looked as though it could be salvaged.

"Well – I doubt he would have noticed! I doubt anybody in this place would have noticed."

"Well, it's a good cover," I answered idly, pulling out the nightgowns that Susanna had provided us with and mentally blessing her for her kindness. "You played the part beautifully, though!" I added brightly, grinning at her and trying to appease her.

"Thank you," Ariana laughed, pleased, her irritation momentarily forgotten. "I'm hungry," she stated by way of changing the subject.

"Yes, I am, too. Do you think there's –" I was cut off by Tristan opening the door and peeking in. "I'm heading down to the tavern for a few minutes. Do you want to come?"

I wasn't thirsty, but I looked at Ari, who had never been to a tavern before in her life. I think the strongest thing she (or I, for that matter) had ever had to drink was half a glass of diluted wine every year at the Midsummer festival – after all, a nursemaid had trailed both her and myself for twelve years. A strange expression crossed her face, but after a moment's consideration, she consented, getting to her feet. "All right," she smiled lightly, getting to her feet. "I'm thirsty as well."

**And… yeah! Thanks so much for reading, and please leave a review!**


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Hey, all! Thanks to Bingo7 for reviewing. This chapter is a little longer than the last; I hope things didn't move too fast! Thanks for reading.**

**Chapter Eleven**

**--Ariana--**

We finally decided on the less-sleazy-looking tavern in the square. The exterior was still badly painted, but it looked much better than the one next door. The interior was nice as well, I suppose—if there had been less people it would have been pleasant. Iron chandeliers swung overhead, the candles glowed in the dim light, and round wooden tables dotted the large hall. A bar ran from one end of the room to the other, faded stools serving as seats. I suppose it looked like an ordinary tavern. Despite that, it was more than a little rough inside.

A group of goblins, draped in their strange bright cloaks, had congregated around a table near the entrance, and hissed as we passed; I knew from meetings with their king that they preferred to associate with their own kind. Still, they didn't frighten me half as much as the leering, knife-toting men at the table next to them. Deciding to keep up the façade of being Tristan's wife, I took his arm hurriedly. He glanced down at me before rolling his eyes and escorting me up to the bar. Marielle, wrapped in a green cloak that Susanna had lent her, was already waiting at a table and, from the looks of it, carrying on a spirited conversation with one of the goblins.

"I'll have an ale," Tristan said firmly to the girl behind the counter, counting out three bronze coins. "For food…"

"We don't serve food here, sorry." The girl, her voice lilted like Tristan's was, shrugged, reaching for a glass. "And for your lady?" Tristan turned to look at me as he accepted it and took a sip.

"Um," I said, mortified, "do you have, uh, cider here?"

The girl gave me a blank look before shaking her head. "You don't get out much, do you?" she asked good-naturedly, a smile starting in the corner of her mouth.

"No," I shuddered as an elf, obviously drunk, slammed into the wall next to me before laughing loudly and stumbling away. "I'm Ari." I sat down on the stool; I wanted to talk to her for a while. Being queen of Marquia, which I intended to be, meant that I'd have to understand my subjects, and by that point I wanted to fix this village more than anything else I'd encountered so far. "How do you stand to work here…?" I fished for her name, trying to guess it before she said it.

"Renee. My name's Renee. Well, my mother died when I was younger, and my father's a soldier, so he's called away a lot to the capital. I've got to live somehow. There's a brothel across the street. When I think I can't stand it anymore, I look at the building."

"That's awful!" I exclaimed, both horrified and slightly embarrassed. Still, I liked Renee's matter-of-fact tone, and the way she multitasked, mixing drinks while talking. Marielle often complained that once I started talking to somebody, I was dead to the world.

"It's all right. When Father saves up enough, I'll quit and move to the capital with him. Get a job as a cook or something. Excuse me, Ari—" Renee turned around to grab a mug of ale for a customer behind me. "This be all, sir?" she asked, while I turned her words over in my mind.

"Yes," came the raspy hiss from behind me, and I stiffened. I had heard that voice before. Where had I heard that voice before? "I've had a long journey," it continued, and I stood, looking towards Tristan and Marielle.

"Where are you headed?" Renee asked, cocking her head to the right and crossing her arms.

"To the Walled City. I'm looking for a friend."

Then I knew: the king's advisor. _Lord Griffyn_.

"Oh. Good luck on your search." Renee went back to pouring drinks, humming, but I remained frozen as he slipped away. "Oh, did you hear? The princess is gone!" Renee suddenly burst out, looking up with an expression that suggested only she knew this juicy piece of gossip. I inhaled deeply.

"What?" I tried to act like a shocked and concerned citizen and not said terrified princess, while at the same time trying to figure out what to do.

"Yes, she went off to visit her aunt—the Duchess of Landworth, the king's sister… and the princess wasn't in her room yesterday morning. And, when they checked, she was gone. They aren't sure if she ran away or if she was kidnapped, but by this point…" This time Renee's face held both of the horror of the idea of the princess disappearing and the delight of a scandal.

"That's… that's really awful! Renee, I'm going to sit down now, all right?" I stated quickly, the words slipping out so fast they tripped over themselves. Dimly, I wondered how she had heard the story, but brushed the thought aside. "It was lovely meeting you."

"Come see me whenever you're here," she nodded cheerily.

I crossed the room to where Tristan and Marielle sat chatting quickly, and stood behind them. "Marielle, put your hood up," I said tensely, my gaze flickering to the corner and back, where Lord Griffyn sat, chatting with an elfin girl. Once, I thought I saw his black eyes glance in our direction, but I couldn't be sure. Why had I left my cloak back at the inn?

"Why?" she asked, obediently pulling at the garment. Tristan looked towards the corner as well.

"Lord Griffyn is here, just do it," I muttered, combing my hacked-off hair over my face with one hand and trying to appear casual.

"You never told me who you were," Tristan said suddenly, his eyes intense. I turned to

look at him, and just I had the day before, I found myself spellbound. _Is it magic?_ I wondered suddenly, held to the blue eyes. Abruptly, he broke the spell himself by looking down to take a final slurp of his ale. I exhaled briefly, feeling almost a letdown. But that wasn't important now; we had to leave.

"Are you finished? We have to get back to the inn. We have to leave now." The words spilled out of my mouth, unintended, and my vision righted itself.

"Why?" Tristan stood, though, genuinely concerned this time. "What is it?"

"Trust us, we just do," Marielle stood and began marching for the door; Tristan sighed, and got up to follow her, knocking his ale to the floor in the process. I started for the door, not waiting for him to right it—I had to get out, had to get out, had to get out—

"My dear, where have you been?" An ice-cold hand had clamped onto my shoulder, freezing me where I stood, and the raspy, reedy voice could come from only one person. "Your husband is looking for you." Terror rose inside me, building as I opened and shut my mouth, trying desperately to make a sound. Anything. Anything to get me away from this man. The hiss continued in my ear. "We need to get back to the capital," he stated, forcing me towards the back door while I complied like a limp puppet. "And I need a way to do so. Would you like to be a bird, princess? You'd be kept in a lovely cage. You would have to be silent, however, my dear. I wouldn't want you to get hurt. Your husband wants you as… _unmarked_ as possible."

The last threat came, and frightened me so much that, like with Braxton, I found my strength. I jerked my arm away, shouting as I did so, and slammed Lord Griffyn into table before he could react. The table collapsed, and I scrambled backwards as the mage, panting and furious, got to his feet, drawing his knife and grabbing at me. He got the edge of my dress and yanked, hard. I kept struggling, but no—he was going to choke me—I couldn't breathe—

Just as red rose before my eyes, he had dropped the garment, and I sucked in as much oxygen as I could, trying to get to my feet. My vision came in flashes—Tristan was standing next to me, shouting something, and then a blast of light shot out of his palms; Lord Griffyn was crashing back down on top of the splintered tabletop. I gripped the edge of a table, trying to catch my breath, and finally I could see the pale, unconscious figure on the table. "You're all right?" Tristan asked, suddenly concerned, and I nodded, my eyes trained on Lord Griffyn. He did not stir, and Tristan rubbed his palms, which were glowing with green sort of light, on his shirt. "That goes for—for anyone else who tries to touch her!" he shouted with the bravado of a soldier, glaring around at the now-silent room. I stood, frozen; I could not react.

"Let's go," Tristan turned to me and, when I didn't move, pulled at my arm. "We have to get out of here," he whispered as the unnatural, shocked silence continued. Finally, Tristan grabbed my wrist, pulled me to my feet, and marched me out of the building. I barely noticed, keeping my eyes on Lord Griffyn's blank, pallid face until the door shut behind us.

I exited into the cool night air, my mind still reeling. Marielle had presumably gone back to the inn—in any case, she wasn't outside, but I was not worried about her. She could take care of herself. Hurried, Tristan began to walk back towards the inn, with me struggling to keep up. "I doubt they'll come after you now," he smiled, trying to make a joke, and I cringed inside. Of course they would—except next time they would aim to kill.

"Thank you," I said awkwardly over my shoulder to Tristan, who was slipping his hands into his pockets. "I… it's not easy to face someone like that, and… I doubt he'll be back," I lied.

"He could have hurt you," came the answer, though Tristan was speaking to the ground. Finally, we had reached the inn, and I waited for him to open the door. "Now, why do you need protection from all these people? Mercenaries, kidnappers… really, I'm surprised you've made it this far." This was said partially in jest, but in the sudden light from the windows of the inn, I could see that his face was serious. "What are you, a runaway damsel?" My stomach clenched; he didn't know.

I exhaled suddenly and shivered, biting my bottom lip. "Let's just go back to the inn. I can tell you there."

Tristan nodded once and then looked at me expectantly. "Oh! Oh, yes, I'm sorry," I apologized, feeling like an idiot as I held open the door. He entered first—again, it was odd—and I quickly followed, giving a sigh of relief as I stepped into the warmth of the open room. One or two boarders sat by the fire, enjoying what looked suspiciously like fresh bread and cheese, and I suddenly felt ravenous. "Let's go wait for Marielle," I suggested, wondering briefly where she was.

"You're staying here for the night, dears? I'm Elsa, the lady of this inn—that's my son who owns it." A voice piped up suddenly at my side, and I turned, startled. A wizened old woman, her white hair piled on top of her hair with multicolored combs, peered at me from not three inches away.

"Ah, yes, um, I'm Ari, and he's my—we're—" I started helplessly, disconcerted by her sudden appearance.

"This is my wife," Tristan clarified, placing a hand on my shoulder. I tried not to flinch, remembering Lord Griffyn's freezing touch.

"Oh, how sweet! You look young, is this… recent?"

"Yes, _very_ recent," Tristan spoke suddenly, a wicked grin slicing his face in half as an idea occurred. "In fact, we were married just three days ago."

"Well, congratulations!" The old woman, oblivious, smiled benevolently. "Would you like something to eat? Do you know what, you won't even need to pay—newlyweds, how romantic." She started off for the kitchen, calling over her shoulder, "Oh, I've got some lovely soup, and bread fresh out of the oven…"

"My sister is staying here as well," Tristan shouted after her. "You may have seen her… blonde hair, green cloak, sort of crazy—"

"What are you doing?" I inquired, a small smile starting in the corner of my mouth even as I tried fiercely to disapprove. "We're not _really_ married, and she's giving us a free meal…"

"Well, we probably overpaid her lousy son up there. Anyway, why shouldn't we continue the charade? It's easier than making up different stories." Tristan turned and began to march for the sofa in front of the fire. I followed him, trying to come up with excuses. If we kept buying everything, we would run out of money. I wasn't exactly sure how much Tristan had or how much Marielle had brought, but I knew that our pockets weren't exactly bottomless.

"It's… it's dishonest," I winced as soon as I spoke. What, exactly, had been at all honest about me during the past two days?

"Speaking of dishonesty, Ariana…" I looked up at him, surprised. "What?" Tristan asked, noticing my face.

"Nothing, you just haven't called me by my name this whole time," I noted. "That's all." The fire blazed, giving the room a cheerful feeling, and I relaxed into the couch, leaning back ever so slightly. True, it wasn't incredibly comfortable, but it was much better than the barstool.

"Why didn't you try to shout or something when that man first approached you? Why didn't you fight back at first?" Tristan asked randomly, examining one of his hands.

"I… I was just… afraid, I suppose," I answered slowly, bemused and feeling sort of stupid.

"Well, if it happens again, you should… not let go of it, but don't let your fear control you. It's like I used to tell my sisters, you're stronger than you think you are." There was a brief silence, broken when he coughed. "Anyway, you still haven't told me why all these people are following you," Tristan continued, turning to look at me. I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could, Elsa reappeared suddenly, bearing a tray laden with three bowls of soup and a full loaf of bread—plus three identical mugs of cider (_Finally!_ I thought eagerly). She placed the tray on the coffee table in front of us, and once again beamed with happiness for our imaginary life. Guilt sank in.

"Thank you, ma'am," Tristan nodded towards her and patted my arm again. "My darling and I are very grateful."

"Oh, bless your souls…" Elsa turned and was gone. Briefly wondering how she got around so fast, I turned back to Tristan. I'd promised to tell him.

"Can we go back to my room?" I asked quickly, looking from corner to corner. There were a few people seated around the room, and I couldn't risk it. Once Tristan had nodded, we gathered the food and hurried off. "Shut the door," I added, as he began to create the strange yellow lights that Ben had back at the manor, glancing from corner to corner. It was much lighter in the room, and I felt safer. Even though Lord Griffyn was incapacitated, I didn't trust the area. Tristan obliged, his eyebrows raised. Quietly, I sank onto a corner of the bed, and faced him. "What I'm going to tell you is true," I warned him, hoping he'd believe me. It didn't seem likely, given his previous attitude, but maybe… I cleared my throat and shook my head, beginning seriously. "My name is Ariana, and I am the princess of Marquia."

***

And so it was that, sitting on my bed in an inn, I told an almost-stranger everything. It was a relief, really, to release the burden I'd been carrying around for days—Marielle knew, but it was her burden as well and really did not concern her _life_. Tristan was a very good audience; he listened, this time, really listened, to me pouring out the truth. Marielle listened, but then that was her job, and I knew that half the time she was coming up with responses or stories in her head when I spoke. I felt better, confiding in him; I felt honest again. He nodded, and smiled when I told him about the scene with the frog, but quickly sobered when I told him of the manner in which we'd escaped. It felt wonderful just to let someone know.

When I finished, half my soup gone, Tristan nodded slowly, processing. Finally, he looked me in the eye, and sighed. "I believe you," he stated simply, placing his hand on my wrist once again. "And, I know I probably shouldn't, but…"

"Oh, I can prove it," I said hastily, remembering the letter to the rulers of the Bright Isles. It was still in Marielle's bag. "We've got an official proposal, with the Libonessen royal seal, Marielle will tell the truth—and what they said in the tavern, about the princess being missing…"

"No, I do. I mean, it sounds ridiculous—sorry for offending you, Your Highness—" he added quickly, and I winced. "—but it does, except it explains everything. The way you act, the way you speak… I don't think reflexes can be learned, either."

"You understand that you're in danger, then, and don't use any titles when you speak to me, please," I added quickly. "Just call me Ariana." A memory of the scene in the tavern flashed behind my eyes: Tristan jumping to my defense, Lord Griffyn tumbling backwards… Tristan removed his hand from my wrist, and I suddenly had the sensation that I'd been burned there. I placed my own hand there, but it stayed the same.

"I understand," he said quickly, nodding, "but don't worry, I won't leave you. After all, you are my princess; I wasn't born in Marquia, but I was raised here. Your father has been a good ruler. According to Susanna and Master Salus, things are better since he took the throne."

"You mean my mother," I chuckled, picking up a piece of the bread. "Father's just _there_, really—I do love him, I mean, but it's my mother who rules."

"That makes sense, actually." There was a pause, and I turned away, watching the shadows on the wall. Tristan coughed and continued after a moment. "But, if I can ask, why didn't you just take him to court?" _Him_ being Braxton, I assumed.

"Well… the court is divided; no pun intended," I added, and he grinned wryly. "There is a faction of traditionalists, who support my father, and then another that supports Sir Luis, one of the councilmen. This isn't a republic, it's a monarchy, but still, Sir Luis has a lot of influence," I played with the sleeve of my dress, feeling awkward. "He wants me to marry the king because he believes that we will gain more territory that way. He supports King Braxton in almost everything, and he's…" I stopped, unable to describe it. "He's very charismatic, and persuasive. He could easily convince the court that I was lying, especially since the only other person, practically, who can translate the letter is a maiden. And he believes that my father will name him as his successor." _Though it isn't true_, I added in my mind, as I always did. _It can't be true_.

"But doesn't the throne go to your relatives?" Tristan, confused, cocked his head to the right, and I shook my head. Ugh, politics!

"Not necessarily. When we seceded from Irenta…" I stopped the history lesson and shook my head. "Not necessarily. It's complicated. You know, the whole usurping thing…" I trailed off, half-smiling. Tristan smiled as well, and we sat companionably in silence for a few moments.

"If you don't mind my asking," I said suddenly, "where were you born?"

Tristan shrugged, finishing a swallow of soup. When he'd finished, he shrugged again. "I don't know. Susanna found me one winter when I was maybe three—she'd let an Irentian woman stay the night, and when she brought her breakfast the next morning, she was gone. Instead, she'd left me on the floor on her way out. No cloak or anything, just a note next to me on the floor. Just said that she was disgraced, couldn't keep me, was very sorry, that sort of thing. She didn't care what they called me. I can't remember what my name was supposed to have been."

"Without a cloak? It was _winter_—you could have died—" I tried to ignore the _disgraced_ part; I sensed that it was painful for Tristan to hear.

"No, but whoever gave me up didn't care about that, did they?" Tristan's tone held, for the first time since the tavern, a hint of irony, and I looked away from his crystal blue gaze and into one of the strange yellow lights Tristan had made. The light flickered, dancing and shimmering and making uncomfortable shadows on the wall. I shivered and glanced away, the thought of wolves making me wonder where in the world Marielle had disappeared off to. Now I was actually starting to get worried.

"Where's Marielle?" Tristan asked as I turned to ask him the same thing, and I shook my head, the sudden sense of alarm startling me.

"I don't know. Lord Griffyn, he… he couldn't have—" I couldn't voice the sudden fear—since we were seven, Marielle had been a constant. If she was hungry, and I knew she had been, she wouldn't have intentionally missed a meal—no, she had been kidnapped or stolen or lost or murdered or… well, she was probably lost, but the darkness of the night in a strange place makes one doubt one's own decisions and intuition.

"No. That spell will knock him out for at least tonight; I've never tested it, but that's what the spellbook said." Tristan got to his feet. _He's a worried about her, too_, I realized. "Maybe we should…"

Just as he began to speak, the door to my room swung open and Marielle stormed in, positively livid. Immediately, relief sprung up to replace the fear that had occupied it seconds before… I suppressed a smile as I recognized that I'd been right: she'd been lost.

"Where were you?" she howled, stomping over to where we sat. Her cloak was still wrapped tightly around Tatiana's old dress, and she appeared to be fine, but the look on her face… "I waited outside the tavern and then I thought you might have left but I didn't notice, so I went to go back to the inn, except it _wasn't_ the inn, oh, no, it was an—" even as she stopped to take a breath, her face flushed scarlet, "—_unspeakable_ place, with _bad_ people and _bad_ things and I went back out but you were _gone _and I didn't know where you were and…" she trailed off and crossed her arms over her chest, looking even more helplessly irritated. "It's not funny!" she cried as Tristan continued snickering. I looked at him, partially confused and partially amused by her rant. And then, of course, it dawned on me.

"You went across the street," I said, and that was all there was to say.

Face still flaming, Marielle went straight back to fuming at us. "Yes, I _did_, and it was horrible and I will never, ever, forget it as long as I—is that bread?" she stopped suddenly, looking at her plate. This time, Tristan and I both burst out with laughter, while Marielle reached for the remaining piece (it was a good quarter-loaf) and began to gobble it down, ignoring us completely. She sat down right on the floor and started in on the soup with voracity. Marielle has never been much for table manners.

"He knows, Marielle," I said quickly and quietly. Holding up her hands and gesticulating wildly, Marielle made fierce attempts to swallow before finally saying thickly, "What did you tell _him_ for?"—giving Tristan a mistrustful glare.

"I promised I would," I answered, slightly bemused.

"Oh. Well. If you must." Marielle went right back to eating while Tristan looked on, his face torn between indignation and amusement.

"And she's always like this?" he asked me, not bothering to keep his voice low. Marielle swallowed yet again and shrugged.

"Only when I feel like it," she answered, which was perfectly true in her mind only. The rest of the evening passed pleasantly; we all finished dinner and Tristan left for his room. Marielle offered to take the floor and let me have the bed to myself, but I decided not to let her. A month ago, maybe I would have, but what Tristan had said had really made me think. His comments about my indifference and not understanding peasants were all twisting around in my mind, though I didn't like to think about it more than I had to. After all, I thought as I drifted off to sleep, Marielle mumbling to herself across from me, learning about my subjects is good practice for when I am queen. That is, if I wasn't murdered before I got the chance. And if Sir Luis, who was starting to resemble a wicked uncle straight out of a fairy story, wasn't crowned before me.

But as pleasant as the latter part of the evening had been, I could not escape my problems in the world of dreams. Strangely, I woke in the middle of the night standing in the common room of the inn, my fingers pressed against the door. Dumbly, I tried to think back to what had happened. I'd been asleep… my arm… and then it came back to me, an image of Lord Griffyn, dark against a red background, lunging forward, a knife in his hand, he was going to kill me, he was bringing it down—but no, I was here; I was safe. I pressed a hand to my chest to still my heart's frantic pounding, suddenly grateful that at least it was still beating. I was still alive, still breathing. I turned, and recognized the same, quiet room that I'd eaten in earlier. Had I been sleepwalking? I'd never done so before, but then, I'd never had such disturbing dreams before. I shuddered and stumbled back, sleepily trying to find my way to my room in the darkness.

I felt for the number on the door—hadn't we had thirteen?—and eased it open, hoping I wouldn't wake Marielle. Then again, an army of Libonessenian bandits could march through the room, trumpets blaring and axes swinging, and she still wouldn't wake up. Still, I slipped into the room, and shut the door softly. She'd left a candle burning, but in my dazed exhaustion I didn't notice, just tiptoed over to the side of the bed that there wasn't already a lump on, and collapsed onto the mattress.

***

I woke up first the next morning. I'd passed the next remarkably well, all things considering, but somewhere in dreamland, I'd heard a strange noise, and being a light sleeper, I shot up, my heart racing again. A quick glance out the window revealed that it was only a small brown owl, seated in an oak tree. _Really, _I scolded myself, easing back down onto the pillow, _you're going to die of a heart attack if you keep this up!_

It was at that particular moment, as I turned to snatch back the quilt from Marielle, who had stolen it while I had been arguing with myself about owls and heart attacks, that I realized two things. One: the candle was so low that it was becoming permanently attached to the floor with its own wax, and two: it wasn't my lady-in-waiting. I staggered off of the mattress as blood rushed to my face; it was Tristan. I'd gotten the wrong room. "_Damn_," I hissed under my breath, forgoing any and every bit of respect for the Irentian language that I had ever had. "_Damn, damn, damn, damn, dammit!_" _Mother is going to murder me_, was all I could think as I stood, dismayed, staring at the person I'd just slept with… no, that didn't sound quite… _damn_. This was clearly not a story that I would tell to my grandchildren someday—this was a bury-in-a-hole-and-pray-no-one-ever-finds-out story. Fortunately for me, Tristan had not moved.

I exhaled, relieved; what in the world would he think of me right now, anyway? I stopped for a moment and tried to make sure he was really asleep. Tristan was breathing peacefully and regularly, though I couldn't see his face, as he was lying down, facing the opposite way.

I swore again, and, extinguishing the candle, I backed out of the room, intent on going right back to dreamland. But I found that, even though it was still dark outside, I couldn't sleep.

**So… yes! Read and review, please! It's very frustrating to see that someone has added your story to Alert or something, but not left a review. I don't know what to fix or what to add or anything if I don't receive reviews. But a big thanks to Bingo7, especially, for being so loyal.**


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Chapter Twelve:**

**--Marielle--**

We left near dawn the next day, but I didn't mind, as I'd actually had a decent night's sleep. The day was overcast and cloudy, but as it hadn't begun to rain by midday, I actually started hoping that we would make it through the rest of the day without getting wet. Conversation was better between the three of us was much better than it had been yesterday; for one thing, Tristan could actually stand listening to me chatter and got into political discussions with Ariana. Even though I knew it wasn't her favorite thing, she willingly consented and actually debated. At first I was surprised that Tristan wanted to know so much about politics. In all honesty, I found matters of state dead boring and hated the thought of having to actually_ care _about protocol; still, Tristan was interested to hear how our government worked.

I'd had a tutor, like the other nobles' children, but Ariana had had a specialist to explain to her all about diplomacy and how to tell whether or not your peasants wanted to storm the castle. I'd always been jealous of her—I mean, my lessons were with Bridgette, and that was bad enough, but I never learned anything worthwhile, no matter how boring politics were. As far as my governess was concerned, my greatest accomplishment was a perfect curtsy; according to her, I would make some unlucky man a terrible wife due to my inability to pay attention, sit up straight, look presentable, stay silent, and, most importantly, write neatly. Walking alongside the horse, I came back to the present, reflecting that I was truly glad to be gone. I missed the library; hours and hours of sitting and poring over the old stories… I knew at least half of them, I was sure. But I didn't miss much else.

"I don't know," Ariana was declining, shaking her head. "What do you think, Marielle?"

"What?" I asked, startled by the question. "What do I think about what?"

"Magic," Tristan turned to look back at me while he spoke, sidestepping a fallen log that I tripped over, "and it's importance."

"There isn't much at court," I said simply, shrugging and trying to act nonchalant as I scrambled to my feet. "We truly don't think much of it, but then that's because no one thinks _about_ it." _Please, please change the subject_, I wished, my stomach twisting guiltily as I remembered that I, myself, was supposed to be a witch.

"But why? You have healers, don't you?" For just an instant, Tristan looked almost hopeful—and then it vanished under his usual half-joking, half-serious expression.

"Well, yes, we have healers," Ariana spoke up from her position on Jess; it was her turn. "And I suppose some of our cooks use magic… Anyway," she shrugged, "I think it's probable that some of the servants are magical, but not the nobles."

"Oh. Why, do you think?" Tristan asked as the sun disappeared again behind the same dark clouds swirling above the trees. "It's really useful; convenient, you know."

"Are you born with the knowledge?" Ariana asked, stopping Jess and sliding off. "Marielle's turn," she sang, squeezing my shoulder as she passed. She'd certainly gotten better at getting on and off horses without a groom to assist her. Me, on the other hand… well. I huffed and I puffed and I _tried_ to scramble into the saddle the way Tristan and Ari seemed to so effortlessly, but in the end, it was necessary for Tristan to help me up.

"Well," Tristan grunted as he helped me clamber onto Jess's back, "not really. It's more being born with the _talent_ for magic; it's in your bones, in everything you do." He paused. "I can't really explain it. But if you start learning from a young age, then it's much easier to pick it up. Salus first apprenticed me when I was about seven. Then, you start with simple spells, like this." Tristan held out his right hand, palm up, and seemed to concentrate inside himself for a brief moment. Then, without any warning whatsoever, a globe of silver light burst in his hand just as a deafening roll of thunder echoed overhead.

"_Yeeeeep_!" I half-squealed and grabbed Jess's mane in an attempt to stay on her. "Did you do that?" I squeaked idiotically as Jess hopped over a particularly large rock.

"No, but we need to get inside somewhere, or in a ditch or something," Tristan glanced up at the sky. Purple storm clouds were gathering there, threateningly clustered far too closely for my comfort; I groaned as I felt a wet _plop_ directly on my forehead. Rain. I hurriedly thrust my cloak over my head, vexed by the storm but grateful that Susanna had lent me the garment.

"We're under the trees, we'll be safe from most of the rain," Ariana stated matter-of-factly, raising her own cloak over her head to protect it.

"Yes, but not the lightning. Honestly, do you learn anything worth knowing in princess lessons?" Tristan snorted. Ariana, irritated, started to retort, but I suddenly cut her off. "Look, there's a place over there," I offered, pointing with one hand and shading my eyes with the other. And indeed there was; a small cabin with a thatched roof, settled between a young maple sapling and a gnarled oak tree. I managed not to trip as I got off of Jess, handing the reigns to Tristan.

"We should ask to stay until the rain stops," Tristan spoke first, breaking into a run with the horse as the rain began to pour down in droves. We followed him—a lot slower because of the dresses, of course, but what can you do?—and just as we reached the front door, soaking wet, it opened.

"Who are you?" a woman's voice, slightly hoarse and wrapped in a thick Irentian accent, called out, and I looked at Ariana, deliberating over whether or not to answer and then wondering whether or not it would be unspeakably rude to ask to stay inside. Fortunately, Ari had no such qualms.

"We're travelers," she responded without missing a beat. "I'm Ari. My husband, his sister and I are going to the Walled City for the competition. It is for—"

"Yes, I've heard about that." The speaker appeared in the doorway; it was a woman, maybe in her early forties, with black hair streaked with gray and sharp brown, almost amber, eyes. I saw the way those eyes lingered on the polite distance between Ariana and Tristan, and how they narrowed when she realized, no doubt, that he and I had entirely different features. _My brother. How many times has she heard that story? _I had to wonder. Still, the woman nodded once, her head jerking with an abrupt gesture like a puppet's. "All right, would you like to come inside? Until the rain stops?"

"That depends," Tristan answered, stepping forward. "Who are _you_?"

"Vallombrosa. I live here," she added as if the idea had just occurred to her, her voice crackling with sarcasm as she indicated the little cottage. I tossed Ariana a look, wondering if it was safe for us to enter, and she shook her head yes. Still, nobody moved, even as the rain continued to fall. "Well?" Vallombrosa demanded brusquely, looking at each of us. "Are you going to come in?"

I fidgeted, waiting uncomfortably as Tristan and Ariana both started inside. Gripping the doorframe, I halted abruptly as the sudden dizziness that always preceded a vision came; but just as before, it stopped and my eyes remained fixed on the natural world. That was odd—that was exceedingly odd, come to think of it. _Why aren't they working? _I wondered, suddenly wishing for the strange visions. At least before, I'd been granted a glimpse of _something_, but now, it was like getting excited over nothing. And I couldn't shake the feeling that this was not natural; it wasn't _right_.

"What's wrong?" Vallombrosa demanded from behind me, and I forced myself to keep walking. Her cottage, as far as I could see, consisted of a small kitchen and parlor, but there was a hallway that led off to what I was sure was a bedroom. She had a bowl of fruit sitting on the table—strangely, it consisted of fruits that were all out of season—other than that, all I could see was a rather large bloodhound, curled up in front of the fire. She shifted to block my view. "Something is wrong. I'm a witch, I can tell." _Well, that explains the fruit._

"Nothing. I'm fine," I tried to sound assertive, but it wasn't working.

"Your magic is strangely… _low_," she observed loudly, tilting her head to one side, and I saw Ari turn just as Tristan whipped around. I felt my face get hot and tried to act as if I didn't understand what she meant. Vallombrosa saw the looks on our faces. "What, you didn't know?" After a moment, she seemed to realize the magnitude of what I apparently hadn't known. "Didn't you?" she directed the last question to Tristan as I tried to feign ignorance.

"I thought I felt," he started, flustered, and shook his head. "I mean, she's already fifteen. She's too old, isn't she?"

"Not necessarily. What's your name?" she asked me, and I sort of squeaked out something along the lines of _Marielle d'Este_. As was traditional, I had taken my mother's name upon my coming-of-age ceremony. "Well, then, Marielle d'Este, I have to tell you that you are a witch. Would like you like some fruit?" Her tone was businesslike, almost exasperated, but I knew she was watching for a reaction. I tried to pretend that I was shocked.

"Me? But I thought that—" I stopped, hating the way her gaze seemed to penetrate my lies. She knew; of course she knew. I gave up the charade, dropping my arms and my surprised expression. Tristan, at least, wasn't _shocked_, but I could feel Ariana's stare burning into my back, and wished I could ignore it. "These visions," I tried again, "they're only sporadic. But lately—"

"Yes, they're almost dysfunctional." Vallombrosa held one palm out as if she was testing wind in a field, circling me, and I resisted the temptation to turn with her. I disliked being looked over as if I were something to be bought. "What was the last experience you had with magic, directly? Were you hexed at all?"

"Not that I can—" I inhaled sharply, suddenly, as a memory came back: Lord Griffyn standing over me; a blast of blue fire wrapping around my legs and winding its way up towards my face. It had stung, but not burned, and I felt my face grow from flushed to ashen as I realized what had happened.

Lord Griffyn had disabled my powers.

"So there was something. What happened?" Vallombrosa repeated, sounding almost bored.

"I was in… a fight," I finally managed to say, and I saw Ari shift at my words. She knew what I was talking about. "And we… vanished, I suppose, but before we did, the opponent… shot me with something, a sort of blue fire…" I trailed off, wishing that I remembered a little more than just flashes of what had happened. Vallombrosa cocked her head to the right, as if remembering something she had once heard. I waited with bated breath, hoping that she could fix me.

"I can help you," she told me brusquely after a beat, and then glanced suddenly at Tristan. "I need your help for this." He nodded, and stepped forward. "You," she directed at Ari, "should stand back, but in the meantime you can help yourself to anything you'd like from the kitchen. Fruit, water, whatever."

"What exactly are we doing?" Tristan asked, wary, as Vallombrosa pointed to a spot on the floor. "Lie down," she told me, and then looked at Tristan. "I studied at the Irentian palace for a few years, and I know that this trick works. Her problem is more common than you'd think; it seems like she's been like this for awhile and the 'fight' or whatever just made it so that she'd notice. Still, the cure is easy—it's just a loosening charm."

I felt awkward, sprawled out on her floor, and even more so when she squatted down next to me. This was made possible by her traditional Irentian garb; a green tunic and long black leggings. "There are several points in your body," Vallombrosa explained to me, "that we Irentian witches have always believed to be crucial to survival. We used to believe that your soul dwelled in those places. Now, though, we know what happens if they don't work properly; the rest of you doesn't work properly. At the Irentian palace, there were physicians working on the _why_, but they're still not sure. What I did learn, though, is this: if these areas are blocked by anything, they can wreak havoc with the rest of your body—magic exploding when it isn't supposed to. And because you didn't start training early enough, you've just let your magic build up, so it couldn't get to your nerves, your heart. It was enough to cause these visions, but not enough to be convenient. Does that make sense?" _Sure_, I thought, nodding. _Anything you say. _"Anyway, I've seen this happen before: the blue flames you spoke of are part of a powerful hex. And if you don't know how to fix it, then you're in trouble. Fortunately for you, I know how to fix it." I felt Vallombrosa's cool hand slide under my neck, and shuddered as she whispered something. "Wrists," she told Tristan, and he copied her, picking up my arms one at a time and murmuring the same thing, his thumbs pressed against my veins.

For most of the procedure, I couldn't move; I just sort of lay there, trying to breathe deeply and to stay calm. I hated being touched, especially by people that I barely knew; still, I had to accept that they were only helping me. Going through life feeling strangely blocked and drained was a worse alternative to a few moments of awkwardness, and I was starting to realize that was how I had felt. With each place inside of me that was freed, my vision felt sharper, clearer; my limbs crackled with energy.

"One more," Vallombrosa whispered, and placed one hand on my ribcage. "_Heal_," she breathed, and with her words, something shot through me; some sort of freezing current; lights exploded behind my closed eyes, and images flickered in the foreground, as if I was watching the outline against the light. Ben leaned against a stone wall, his eyes downcast; Queen Hyacinth buried her face in her hands; my father gripped the hilt of his sword. Each image started slowly, and then they grew more rapid, blending with others and swirling behind my eyes. They came more quickly, turning into a never-ending show that I could hardly understand; faster and faster, faster and faster, until at least I ceased to process them at all. My eyelids were shuddering, my heart was pounding, I knew I should be frightened, but I couldn't even process what was happening; all I could see were the images. Was I speaking? The sole part of me that was still sane didn't know, and I could hardly breathe and who was that and where was I and I had to stop, had to stop, it was too much, and I—

I forced my eyes open, and the stream of images stopped; I was in the witch Vallombrosa's cabin, still lying on the floor. I shakily got to my feet, realizing uncomfortably that my two companions were staring at me as if they'd never seen me before. Still, I felt something new, something strange: it was as if I were now tapped into a new stream of consciousness. My senses were sharper; I felt more aware.

"Are you all right?" it was Tristan who spoke first, and I nodded, pulling myself into a sitting position. He extended his hand, and I took it, allowing myself to be yanked to my feet.

"You, boy," Vallombrosa barked, and Tristan turned towards her, looking slightly irritated. "I have some things I can lend her—spellbooks, that sort of thing. I need your help." She turned, and gestured at him over her shoulder. He made a face at her retreating back, and then followed as she disappeared down the hall.

"How long have you known?" Ariana asked, and I jumped, having almost forgotten she was there.

"Since… I overheard Ben telling his father what he thought," I confessed, hating the way her voice came out whispery and accusatory at the same time, as if she were very hurt. Flustered, I struggled to explain. "He had thought—I mean, we were—well, I think he _thought_ he wanted—"

"—to marry you," Ariana guessed, and she smiled thinly when my cheeks darkened. _Or something_, I thought awkwardly."But why didn't you tell me?" Such a basic question, and it still made me feel like the worst friend in the world.

"I thought… I don't know. It's stupid. I mean… I thought it would go away if I didn't talk about it. He said that my mother was a witch, too, but I didn't know. I thought he was wrong. But…" I trailed off, biting my lip. Vallombrosa's dog had come over to us, and I stroked its floppy ears absentmindedly. I once owned a dog—one of my father's hounds had puppies when I was four, and I got to keep one.

"You think that's why—" Ari stopped herself, her expression suddenly horrified. I grew redder when I realized what she was thinking. Still, as she'd finished my sentence, I knew enough to finish hers.

"—why my parents hate each other. I thought about it," I sucked in a breath, gently squeezing the mutt's ears, "but I don't know. I don't think so."

"You know that you can always tell me _anything_," she promised, and I nodded, sucking in my cheeks like a fish as I inhaled and then letting them out with a sigh. The image of Ben, standing quietly after the almost-kiss in the library, came to mind, but I couldn't put it into words.

"Well, I think it'll be much easier to find out what Braxton is doing," I shrugged. "I mean, now that I can, you know, find out."

"You should have seen Tristan's face," she giggled. "You were talking, when you had…" she trailed off, but I understood, my face flushing even more.

"Goodness! What did I say?"

"I've no idea. It sounded like a mixture of every language you'd ever studied. I understood some of the ones we both learned, but not everything." We sat in silence for a moment. "What's it like?" Ari leaned forward, head cocked to one side. Her lopsided hair was tangled and had leaves in it, and I smiled.

"You know what? It's like… having a sixth sense."

"Well, you do," Vallombrosa interrupted, entering the room. She held three spellbooks in her hands. Seeing our confused looks, she nodded jerkily. "Witches and warlocks and whatever have six senses. Faeries and a few other creatures have seven. Now," she continued, "these books will help you. I've memorized them, practically—they're mainly elementary, practical spells. You might have a little bit of difficulty, but you've got a trained teacher." At her words, Tristan's face twisted into something vaguely resembling pain. I smiled.

"Thank you, but—wait, are you _giving_ these to me?" I blurted, accepting the books from her. They were all bound with leather, the pages thin and worn; I could see that keeping them dry was going to be a challenge. Still, as I breathed in that old-book smell and pressed them to my chest, I already loved them.

"As a loan. When you're on your way back here with your _brother _and _sister-in-law_, you can give them back to me. _And _I expect a demonstration of your magical prowess."

"Thank you," I said again, clutching the books to my chest. Vallombrosa would be a strange mentor, but she was better, I supposed, than none and all. And now I was indebted to her.

"Well, you're now a member of the sisterhood, and I have sworn by the ordinances of the organization that I would never leave a friendly witch helpless. I can't leave one of our own without any training! You'll be eaten alive." She smiled, as though she had made some incredibly humorous remark, and I grinned in response; it was the first genuine smile I'd seen from her. "Now," she added to Ariana. "Your husband told me you need protection? Some sort of gambling thing?"

Ari turned to Tristan, aghast, before forcing a nod and an apologetic look while he grinned broadly. "Yes, well, I just live for the game! Unfortunately, I'm in a little deep right now. I would love to have more… protection, as you put it." Without warning, Vallombrosa's face cracked into a huge smile.

"Oh, I know where you can get some protection," she nodded. "The question is, though, my dear, can you act?"

"Excuse me?" I heard Ari ask (I was too preoccupied with looking at my new books to pay much attention). "Act?"

"There's a group of traveling players that came here just the other day—they asked me to be their fortuneteller, and I understand their few actors just up and left a few months back. Or, there's a group of robbers that lives a few miles back the way you came," she pointed. "Your choice."

"I think that," Tristan started, but then coughed and shook his head. "We'll be fine on our own," he finally said, his light tone rather forced.

"If you're sure. I know one thing, for all of you in these woods: don't go anywhere alone." Vallombrosa listened for a moment to the water bouncing off of the roof. "It doesn't sound like the rain is going to stop for awhile. Want some fruit?"

"Well—" Ari glanced at me, and I nodded once. "We would love some, thank you very much."

And so we passed a pleasant afternoon, sitting in the kitchen of a socially awkward witch and eating the best fruit I'd ever tasted and wondering, all of us, what the next few days might bring. And, while we were eating, Vallombrosa offered to tell our fortunes—"And no silly tall-dark-strangers, either," she promised, reaching for my palm. "Just the truth."

Vallombrosa shut her eyes and suspended her hand just above my palm. She seemed to be stroking the air above my hand, and then, after a brief pause, she pressed down to touch it.

"Now, Marielle. I see…" there was a pause, and then I realized that she was speaking to me in elfin. But how she had known— oh, right, I realized, remembering how Ari had said I'd babbled in tongues earlier. "Your heart is longing for someone. But be warned. All is not—"

"Will I see him again? Or is he in danger?" I interrupted her, suddenly breathless, as if her words had knocked the wind out of me.

"It is not certain," Vallombrosa answered bluntly. "But there is danger, yes. Whether it concerns him, I cannot say, but there is danger in your future. The coming weeks will fiercely test your loyalties. Make the right choice, and your future is safe."

"And if I make the wrong choice?"

She simply looked at me. "You are finished," she spoke in Irentian, releasing my hand, and then looked at Ariana. "Your turn."

I got up, shaken. Ben… she wasn't certain that I would ever see him again. Now, I knew for a fact that, if my life were actually normal, I could probably see Ben any time I wanted to. It was easy, especially since I had a father who was on the King's Council and who typically gave me whatever I asked for because I hardly ever asked for anything. If I asked, my father would only have to write an official summons, and Ben would be there. Or, of course, _I_ could go to _him_.

But, my life was not normal. And I doubted that running for one's life and discovering one was a witch and planning to warn of an invasion plot would _never _be considered normal. There was a price on Ari's head, for all intents and purposes. If we were caught, how easy would it be for Braxton to kill us and frame others? With Sir Luis supporting him, and possibly lying for him, it would be like shooting a lame deer. Pathetically and ridiculously easy. Undoubtedly, Vallombrosa meant that, should our plan fail, not only would Ben and I be separated, but also that my life would be in jeopardy. A pang went through my heart, and even as the whole love-struck-heroine irony wasn't lost on me, I felt sick.

"You are finished," I'd heard Vallombrosa say. Whether she meant with the palm-reading or with my _life_, I had no idea. And as for the choice I was going to have to make? I didn't _know_!

This was all so frustrating that I was ready to give up, and pretend that I'd never heard any inkling of what was to come. This was ridiculous. Completely insipid. _What is the point of knowing the future if you don't get any specifics? _I wondered, brooding as Tristan politely refused to hear his fortune. _It's not like I can—_ And then it dawned on me.

I rubbed my eyes and tried to use my new senses to bring about a vision—just to see what was to come, of course. Nothing more, nothing less. I concentrated on our little group, of me, Tristan, and Ariana; somehow, I could sense their energies with my eyes shut. My vision turned inward, and then color exploded behind my eyelids, and I saw, clearly, what was to come.

_Oh_, I thought, almost shocked, though I shouldn't have been._ Really?_

And then: _This doesn't make anything any easier._

**And… that's it for this chapter! See if you can guess what Marielle Saw. Thanks to Bingo7 for reviewing and adding my story to your alert! It made me very cheerful. =D Have a nice day, everyone, and please review!**


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Hey, all! Thanks so, so, so, so much to all who reviewed the last chapter; Frogster (five reviews at once!), Lumiere Hikari (thanks for your help!), and Bingo7 (my loyal reviewer). I truly had a terrible day last Thursday—it was really awful—and when I went online, I saw that I had, like, ten reviews. It couldn't make the day **_**not **_**crappy, but it made me feel so much better. Thanks, guys! Now, sit back, relax, and enjoy the show!**

**Chapter Thirteen**

**-Ariana-**

After Vallombrosa's help, we spent the next few days making our way towards the Walled City, stopping at inns and passing ourselves off as a married couple and their sister (well, my sister-in-law); one evening, though, Tristan decided that it would be a good idea to sleep in the woods. After all, our pockets weren't bottomless. We'd gotten a quick supper over at the local tavern for three copper coins each; it had been much cheaper than staying overnight _and_ paying for a meal. We had cloaks we could use for blankets, as the grass was soft enough, and we'd also gotten Marielle to use her newfound powers (and spellbooks) to see whether or not it was going to rain. It wasn't, as far as she could see, and so Tristan eagerly embraced the plan.

Now, though, as the sky darkened and the crickets chirped, we simply sat in the clearing, resting. Well, I was resting; Tristan was fiddling with our little pile of kindling and Marielle was placing small pebbles in a ring around the area. It was part of a protective charm, Tristan had explained earlier. We would become virtually nonexistent to any predators, and the pebbles could be used, with the right enchantment, as an invisible wall. Really, I could not believe that magic was so uncommon at court. The things it could do for the military…! Still, I found myself a little skeptical.

"Are you sure this is going to work?" I asked Tristan, who was placing dried twigs in the pile and who was in a much better mood than he had been since I'd known him. "He does care—more than you know," Vallombrosa had observed, just before she began to trace my palm. Her words had caused me to think about him differently, to notice all the little things Tristan had done to try to help us. Like this wall of invisible pebbles or whatever.

"I used to do this all the time," Tristan promised, creating a series of sparks to start the fire while Marielle warned him that he was going to burn himself. "Healer Salus put a protective charm around the area so nothing bad could get in, and I'd just drift off looking up at the stars." He smiled for a moment, uncharacteristically dreamy, and then went back to arranging the twigs. From my spot on the ground, I watched Tristan twisting his fingers as if spinning an invisible coin between them. A moment later, a crowd of small pebbles had encircled the twigs, and Marielle stomped her foot. She, on the other hand, was _not _in a good mood lately. I don't think she was getting much sleep—I'd never noticed how much she talked in her sleep before, but now she was certainly worse than ever. I was trying to be patient, but her sudden mood swings and negativity were really irritating.

"Oh, _really_?" Marielle called out, exasperated. "If you can _do_ that, then why did you let me?"

"I didn't think about it," Tristan got to his feet, shrugging apologetically. For once, he wasn't mocking her. "Here, let me—" he repeated the motion, and another row of pebbles sprang up. Marielle, momentarily mollified, smiled at him and sat down.

"I think I'll go to sleep," she announced abruptly, stretching out on the ground without benefit of a cloak. Yawning, she managed to grumble the Elfin word for _night_.

"Good night," I whispered, but by that point I think she was already out, and so I bit my lip and looked towards the small fire. Something about the scene before me squeezed my heart with a strange emotion, sort of a loneliness that I felt all the way through my bones. I don't know what triggered it. Maybe it was the image of my formerly vain best friend curled up on the grass, streaked with dirt; maybe it was the sudden realization that I, the princess, once so protected, was sitting in the middle of a clearing with a price on my head. As I got to my feet, I felt as if the world had dropped out from under me; I wished that I was home. Tristan glanced back at me, and caught the expression on my face.

"What?" he asked, clearly having mistaken it for something else. _Pain, perhaps_, I thought as he met my eyes. He wasn't far from the truth.

"It's nothing, I'm fine," I denied, smoothing my expression back into place with a wave of my hand. "I—watch out!" I barked as Tristan jerked back from the fire. Sure enough, just as Marielle had foretold, he had put his hand too close to the flames.

"Burned my damn hand," he muttered, shaking said hand around as if to try to cool it. Feeling sort of awkward as I watched him nurse it, I tried to pull from the depths of my memory something that my aunt had told me. I knelt down, and, searching through the tangle of weeds at my feet, came up with what I had been looking for: the same pale, spotted yellow herb I'd seen growing all over the woods. I had long ago forgotten its name, but I knew its purpose: when the leaves were squeezed tightly enough, they gave off a kind of natural salve that healed burns.

"I can heal it, if you want me to," I said after a brief moment filled with Tristan's hissed curses. He looked up at me, his face shadowy in flickering light from the fire.

"I don't…" he seemed to consider my words, and then, with some reluctance, nodded. "All right."

"Good, then," I squeezed the leaves with one hand, and waited as Tristan approached slowly. "All right, now, give me your hand. This might sting a little, but—"

"What?"

"I said, 'give me your hand,'" I repeated, watching him and feeling confused. "You didn't hear me?"

"No, no, I heard you, I just…" Tristan paused, and drew his hand back, careful not to touch it. "You know what," he said hurriedly, "I'm _fine_, really, I don't need to have my hand—"

"Don't be ridiculous," I felt a slightly imperious tone creep into my voice, and shook my head to rid myself of it. _Don't be obnoxious_. "It'll only take a few seconds and the burn will be gone by tomorrow."

"No, _really_, I don't care—" Tristan denied, raising his shoulders and stepping back again. I took a step forward, prepared to drop the subject, and then I realized.

"You're afraid," I accused, laughing with something like delight.

"No!" Tristan denied again, panic in his voice, and I started laughing harder.

"Yes, you are," I giggled until I could see that he was almost past uncomfortable; then it was back to business. "All right, give me your hand. I promise I won't hurt you." I sat down by the fire, extended my hand and waited. Just as I was sure that he was just going to live with the burn, he had extended his own, sinking down beside me.

I had never actually touched Tristan's hand before, and the feel of it surprised me. It was roughened by work and, of course, warm from the burn, but there was an underlying gentleness. It was almost like Tristan himself, who was beginning to surprise me more and more every moment that I knew him. I realized after a moment or two that he was looking at me, as if he had been thinking something along the same lines. I was learning to judge Tristan's mood by his eyes. This was new, as his eyes were thoughtful; the rest of his face was almost always unreadable. Tristan watched me for a moment, and he clenched his teeth as I—rather abruptly—began to spread the salve over the angry red skin.

"Who are you?" he asked as I continued, grabbing another handful of the herb. I looked up.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, one minute you're Her Highness the Princess of Marquia, then you're a damsel in distress, then Ariana, the one wench in the world besides my sisters that knows how to irritate me."

"And who am I right now?" I asked, wincing from the _wench _comment. Lovely word. Most people don't even know what it really means, not that I'm one to correct them.

"Ari," he answered, a faint smile growing, "my friend with a million hidden talents." I blushed, glancing back down at his hand. I had finished with the salve, but I kept my hand where it was, my fingers curling around his. I heard the crickets around us, I heard Marielle's muttering, but for a moment, I felt as if it was just me and Tristan.

"Ariana," he said after a brief silence that felt as if it had lasted an eternity, his eyes intent, "I have to tell you something.

"Yes?" I managed, trying to avert my eyes and knowing it was impossible to. _Spellbound_, I thought, and swallowed.

"I think that…" just as Tristan began, Marielle gave a ragged breath and then pulled herself into a sitting position.

"He's coming for us," she said hoarsely.

"Who is?" I demanded, turning swiftly to face her. She could, after all, see the future. What if she'd had a vision in her sleep? What was wrong?

"The demon king of the frogs, Narthslock," she hissed, and I realized belatedly that she was still asleep. With that worry shared, Marielle flopped back down.

Tristan and I shared a broken little laugh, the strangely tense and exhilarating atmosphere shattered. As I turned to face him, I asked, "What did you have to tell me?"

"I think that your hair is definitely more practical, cut like that. Less princess-y." Tristan flashed me a smile, withdrawing his hand from mine. My fingers closed over empty air, and even though I returned the smile, I still felt a letdown. _What is wrong with me?_ I wondered, and then bit my lip as I realized that I knew exactly what was wrong.

"Thank you," Tristan said softly, lying down onto his cloak and turning so that he faced the sky.

"You're welcome." My response was dry and automatic, and I knew, somehow, that I was not going to sleep for a few hours.

The next morning I woke up lying on my side, facing Tristan. He was still asleep, but he was just a few feet away from me; his chest rose and fell with the peace of one who has no troubles, at least in dreamland. I lay there for a moment, my body slightly curled, one arm extended, considering the person in front of me. I was sharply reminded our night together in the first inn we'd come to, and felt my face grow hot even though I hadn't spoken aloud. I'd tried to repress the memory, like Marielle was always saying people did, but I suppose it hadn't worked. And now, I thought as I slowly pulled myself upward into a sitting position, hands on my knees, I was starting to like Tristan—a little better than I should. I mean, he was irritating.

Right?

"Narthslock," Marielle mumbled across from me, turning over, and I sighed. No time for the confused worries of my childish, stupid little heart. I got to my feet, rubbing my eyes.

"Tristan?" I called out softly, stepping over to him. "Tristan." He didn't move. "Come on, it's time to wake up," I reached down and tapped one of his shoulders. He opened one bright blue eye at me.

"I've been awake. I just haven't moved," he grumbled, reaching towards his neatly folded cloak. Nodding, I took a deep breath as my stomach clenched. _Damn_. I knew that feeling.

"What did I miss?" Marielle called groggily, sitting up and scraping her hair back with one hand.

"Nothing of importance. We've got to go," I said, glancing at Jess, who was peacefully tied to a tree, and at our small ring of stones around our "camp." The fire was out; smoking in the center, it looked cold and dead, with barely any sparks to suggest that it had once glowed a vivid orange.

Though it was Marielle's turn to ride the horse, she declined, stating that it gave her a stomachache and she'd prefer to walk. Tristan quickly seconded this, and so I was granted the honor of riding Jess. Not that I was too happy about it—the last few days in the saddle had left me feeling sore and bruised. We trundled along for a few minutes, Marielle attempting to create a light like the one Tristan could the whole way, and with every step Jess took, I shuddered, wishing to curse from the pain. Once, she decided that it would suit her to prance not on the soft forest floor, but on a flat rock. I gritted my teeth, but it still hurt. Fortunately, before I could explode and completely go ballistic, a man stepped out of a clearing and into our path, his crossbow pointed directly at us.

Or unfortunately, really.

Marielle screamed, and Tristan gave a shout—I jerked on the reins, startled, and Jess reared, whinnying. I grabbed frantically for her mane, only just managing to stay on her back. "Wait!" Tristan called out, holding out his hands. "We're unarmed."

"Well, I don't hunt people," the stranger answered, chuckling. He lowered the crossbow, shaking his head. "I just wanted to make sure you were friendly; we've had some guards come by, trying to get us to leave. Don't know why; it's our forest as much as the King's."

"Do we look like guards?" Tristan snorted, raising his eyebrows and returning his hands to his pockets. "Don't worry," he added, as the man crossed his arms, "I understand. That's just what men like you and me do. We roam around the forest looking for fights."

"Are you with the traveling players?" I asked suddenly , remembering what Vallombrosa had told us as I quickly slid off of Jess's back. _Ouch_. She had calmed down, to be sure, but after nearly getting _thrown_, I wasn't too keen to stay on.

"Yep, I am," the stranger squinted at me. "I'm Marc," he pronounced after a moment. "We've got a show tonight, if you're interested."

"Actually," Tristan spoke up, "we were hoping we could join you, at least for the rest of the summer season. See, Ariana and I are actors, and she…" he hesitated at Marielle. I'd sat up straight at the mention of actors. Acting with a troupe? The idea would have horrified my mother, but it was something I'd thought would be interesting and exciting. I would imagine that I was an actor whenever I had to put on the Princess Ariana persona for the rest of the court.

"I'm a fortuneteller," Marielle blurted and then looked stricken, as if she hadn't meant to say that. Luckily, Marc didn't seem to notice.

"Okay," he nodded, an infectious grin taking over his features. "We've never had one… and we can always use a few actors. Come on. I'll take you to meet the group."

Living and working with the small group of traveling players was indescribably different from the sheltered, protected, bruised-by-a-feather life I'd led for the past sixteen years, and for the first time in my life, I really _felt_ the freedom I'd tasted since I'd left home. There were only seven in the group (not counting Alyson and Daniel's daughter), and by the second day, I felt as if I truly belonged.

First, there was Helen; tall and rather domineering, she was the leader of the group and a talented horsewoman. Alyson and her husband, Daniel, were the musicians; she played the lute and he accompanied her with either small pipes or by singing. They were the only couple in the group, married with a small child called Bethanne. The dancers were Kailyn and Marc, childhood friends who had become dance partners upon joining the group (although Marc maintained that he was an _expert_ it the arts of _combat_, not a _dancer_, he really was). There also was a retired knight, Spencer, who handled fencing. And lastly, there was a young teenager named Maxwell; barely out of childhood, he proclaimed himself to be a master of both the lyre and the voice. Truly, he was a talented singer, even though his voice had to have just barely changed. Spencer was without a doubt, he was the oldest at thirty-eight. Alyson and Daniel were around twenty, Helen was thirty-two, and Kailyn, Marc, and Maxwell were closest to our ages at seventeen and fourteen, respectively. Fortunately for our own acting abilities, each could act as well as perform their specified talents.

They, too, were headed for the Walled City; as Helen put it matter-of-factly at supper the first night: "A wizards' tournament attracts attention. While Tristan competes and you deliver your letter, we'll be off performing somewhere." It made sense, and I felt much better knowing that we would be safe.

For supper we'd all had a rabbit stew, courtesy of the men (plus Maxwell)… and, of course, of a nearby farmer who'd sold us vegetables for a few bronze coins. Now, we all sat comfortably around a fire, eating out of Tristan's conjured wooden bowls. I was talking with Alyson and Daniel, while Marielle chattered away with Kailyn and Maxwell, and Tristan, of course, had immediately gravitated towards Spencer and Marc. After a few days of all-female companionship, I couldn't blame him for wanting to converse with members of the same species.

"Bethanne, get back here—" Alyson was calling as the child toddled off towards a cat that was passing through the forest. I smiled as Bethanne turned and pouted as she walked back to her mother.

"She's pretty," I told Alyson, who smiled as she took the small girl into her arms. "She has your hair, but your husband's eyes," I noted. Alyson had lovely hair; long, auburn, and curly, Bethanne had inherited that trait, along with the hazel eyes of the quiet Daniel.

"Thank you!" Alyson giggled, pleased. "She's a little monster, though, when she wants to be—Bethanne can throw tantrums like no other. You and Tristan don't have children?" she asked, causing Marielle, who had just turned to me, to splutter and cough out half her stew as she cackled like a child. Maxwell brayed.

"No," I answered, my face burning bright red as my idiot friends continued to snicker, "we're not married. Or… together, I suppose." I could have mentioned that I wasn't entirely sure _what_ we were anymore, but as much as I liked Alyson already, I wasn't ready to bare my soul to her quite yet.

"Oh." Alyson didn't seem embarrassed by her off guess; to the contrary, she grinned. "Well, when you do have children, be sure not to let anyone spoil them. Daniel spoils this one, though I wish he wouldn't… it's hard enough not letting myself do the same without worrying about him." She had an infectious laugh and a kind voice, but unfortunately for me, she continued. "I don't know why you looked so surprised though. After all, you are traveling together—and I thought she was his sister"—pointing at Marielle. "I wouldn't have been surprised if you did have children someday." Once again, I went crimson as Marielle went off in another fit of laughter, this time upsetting her bowl completely. Fervently, I prayed that Tristan and his companions hadn't heard—though I didn't know Marc well enough yet, I was positive that it was something he would never let go.

"Wait, what?" I heard a voice from a few feet away, and I looked up. Marc, Tristan, and Daniel were looking at us, each with an eyebrow raised.

**That's all for now! Oh, but please note: the rating has indeed changed. My friend Lumiere Hikari helped me decide whether or not to change it by utilizing the "ten-year-old cousin" test for certain scenes and certain words: would you let a fairly mature child see this is it was a movie? The answer, for a few scenes, was "no." So, really, with the exception of a few scenes and words, the story is still K+. It's just rated T for language and thematic elements. Thank you!**


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Hey, all! Thanks to Lumiere Hikari, Bingo7, and Frogster for reviewing. Read on!**

**Chapter Fourteen**

**Marielle**

I watched Kailyn and Marc as they twirled and leapt, each wearing brightly colored costumes with attached bells that tinkled with every movement—the bells shone brightly in the sunlight that filtered down through the trees. Marc was showing off his "combat skills," (really, he was a dancer of sorts) as he put it, while Kailyn looked more artistic. I watched them out of the corner of my eye, even though I wasn't supposed to. The (very) intimidating Helen had pronounced loudly that because their last storyteller had left them a month ago, one of us had to fill the role… and I'd signed up for the job. Or, rather, Ariana and Tristan had said, "not me" before I had time to think, even though, I sulked, they'd both have been good at it. I hadn't quite anticipated Helen sitting me down on a dry patch of grass and ordering me to invent a story to tell the next night.

So, while Marc and Kailyn practiced dancing, accompanied by Alyson, Daniel and Maxwell, I got to sit against a tree, daydreaming.

Sounds like a great task, right? Still, I couldn't help but feel guilty as I watched how hard the others were working. Tristan was working on a drama with Helen while Spencer was refreshing Ari's memory with a blade; she'd been taught to fence as a child, and had taken lessons from the master-of-arms off and on for several years after that. Settling back into the tree, I shut my eyes while I fished through all the old faerie tales that each child had heard since birth; after going through each one mentally, I decided that, as strange as _The Little Mermaid_ was, it was the best chance I had. "Once upon a time," I began, weaving the tale as I spoke out loud, "there was a young priestess…"

I loved to invent tales; changing characters and storylines gave me immense pleasure, and there was nothing I liked more than to sit somewhere quiet and invent something of my own. Even more so, I enjoyed tweaking older stories to suit my own purposes. Retellings were my specialty. Sometimes, I had collaborated with Ariana, though not very often. I did, occasionally, wish that I had someone to bounce ideas off of, and that morning, creating a story, I found that person.

Kailyn joined me shortly after she and Marc finished practicing, even collapsing down next to me elegantly. Being a dancer, she seemed to move with a sort of fluid grace—something that contrasted with the jingling caused by the bells on her costume. "So, what do you have so far, um, Mary?" The look on her face suggested that she was sorry for having gotten my name wrong, but it still irked me.

"It's Marielle. Combine the two names—Mary, and Elle." I quirked my mouth over to one side, irritated. "You are… Kailyn, right?" I'd been tempted to get her name wrong as well, but had resisted. Kailyn nodded, her loose hair bouncing. It was blonde on top, though darker underneath, and her slightly slanted eyes were a brilliant forest green. What interested me most, however, was that Kailyn's tanned skin was decorated around her ankles and wrists with decorative tattoos. It was similar to Irentian nobles' tattoos, but while Kailyn mostly looked normal, instinct told me that she wasn't human. Marc, I recalled suddenly, looked very similar, except his eyes were slate gray instead of green, and the tattoos had been different.

"Right. And I'm sorry I forgot your name. I'm not so good with those. But thanks for remembering mine." I barely heard her, nodding absently; I was too busy trying to dissect her accent. She was definitely elfin; maybe even full-blooded, I thought after a moment, sneaking another look at her bone structure. Yes; her cheekbones were high, her chin was pointed, and then, of course, there were the ears—did she have them? Kailyn shook out her hair, and for the first time I glimpsed her ears: pointed, they were also tinged with green. It was a sort of reflex, I had heard; almost like some of those strange lizards in the South, elves' ears often turned green whenever they were around foliage. It was a moment before I realized I was staring, and immediately felt stupid.

"Oh! Um, I've gotten about halfway through with the story, but I'm… sort of stuck." I had learned the art of storytelling back home—the one useful thing my governess had ever taught. Young Ladies must be entertaining when the occasion arises.

"Ah," Kailyn nodded knowingly. "Well, what's it about?" I gave her a brief description of what I had so far—the oft-told tale of a mermaid who longed to switch species, only from the point of view of the Sea Witch. Kailyn listened patiently to my ramblings before finally offering suggestions. This eventually turned to us discussing the old stories as well—I'd discovered the night before that Kailyn loved them—which, somehow, turned to discussing clothes.

"You have a really interesting costume," I offered, picking up a piece of the trailing sleeve and rubbing it between my fingers. It felt light and smooth—a sort of cross between gauzy fabric and silk. "I love the colors. You know, I actually think I saw something like this back… home, when these dancers came. Except instead of the bells, they had these coins sewn onto the fringe that clinked together… and, of course, the colors were different. But I think the general pattern was the same."

"Thanks," Kailyn answered modestly, and I realized that she had probably made it herself. "I actually got the fabric from a stall in the market in the Walled City. When you're there, you ought to get some yourself. This is some of the best I've ever seen."

"Really?" I asked, shifting to one side. "All I have is this dress," I added hurriedly, trying to make it plain that I was a simple girl of few possessions instead of a "privileged daughter of a lord"… as my old governess had always felt the need to remind me.

"I thought I saw some fabric you'd kept in your bag?" Kailyn questioned, turning her head towards me. "I could help you make it into something more comfortable if you like."

"Yes, but that's Ariana's," I added hastily. "I mean, it was just fabric we'd found a few weeks ago back home—you know, someone had tried to throw it out, but she thought there would still be wear left in them so I was going to make it into… something else. I do have some of my own, fabric, though!" I added brightly, standing up. Kailyn stood as well, chortling at my babbling.

"I'll sit with you," she offered. "I need to work on this"—her costume—"anyway."By sunset, I'd made two new friends (Maxwell, Kailyn's closest friend next to Marc, had hung around the tent, trying to get her to go hunting with him) and half a tunic out of the materials. Even as Maxwell left, however, Ariana and Alyson arrived.

Around late afternoon that day, we all started talking; Ari and I had chosen to trust these two, though we hadn't told them _the truth_. Or anyone, actually. From the moment we had been allowed into the troupe, though, I hadn't trusted Helen. Something about her I found… not _cruel_ exactly, but she was clever. And ruthless. She had started the troupe to make money, and I was sure that not only would Helen try to find out all she could about us, but she would also betray us if given the chance. My father may or may not have posted a reward for my return, but I was positive that Ari's had.

Anyhow, we sat together, Alyson pretending to tune her lute and Kailyn pretending to work on her costume once again, simply chatting and sharing stories. Kailyn, it turned out, _was_ an elf—her parents had been killed, she said, in a raid during the Twelve Years' War, when she was barely eight years old. She and Marc had stayed with the survivors from their village until two years ago, when they had left home together—"But not 'together, together'," she added hastily, laughing. Marc still had a father and brother, to whom he faithfully took half the money he earned each week.

Alyson was different—very much so, she said, ending the silence after Kailyn finished speaking. She had been born a noblewoman, the daughter of merchant Antoine and Lady Chelsea of Keystone, a port city in a Marquian territory near the Bright Isles. Her husband, Daniel, was a poor farmer's son, whom she met at the marketplace when she helped her father and their cook with various goods. Her mother had been appalled at their even meeting, and forbade Alyson to ever see him again. This was impossible—already, Alyson had been tired of her mother's overly controlling attitude, and so she began to rebel. Soon, she was sneaking out to meet Daniel, and by the time she was fifteen, she was in love with him. And then, as these things happen, her mother found out. Before she could so much as offer an explanation, Alyson found herself engaged to a man nearly twice her age. Locked away, alone and desolate, she claimed that she "could not even play" the lute any longer. But, thanks Alyson's cook, Daniel found her the night before her wedding, and the two escaped together. "We were married on the ship on the way over to the mainland. We finally went to the Capital, and that's where we met Helen. We had Bethanne when I was eighteen."

"How did you know you loved him?" Ari whispered, her voice hushed, ignoring my puzzled stare.

"I guess it was when I realized," Alyson said slowly, "that I could not imagine living a life with anyone else but him."

"Can I just say," I began, taking a sip from my flask-o'-water and single-handedly (and knowingly, it must be admitted) shattering the mood, "that that is one of the most romantic things I have ever heard in my entire life?"

Alyson laughed and whacked me lightly on the arm, while Ariana simply sat, brooding. Kailyn had stood and was stretching her arms. "I've got to go," she said reluctantly, stretching. "My night to get dinner." Alyson looked after her as she left, and then smiled.

"It _is_ getting late… now, if you'll excuse me, it is my turn to get supper together for Bethanne. I shall see you ladies later." With that, Alyson was gone; it was just me and Ariana left sitting by the tree.

"I'm hungry," I pronounced decidedly, mentally saving Alyson's word choice and expressions. I didn't know if I would ever need it, but it might do me good if I could use them in a story. Her own story was the stuff of legends; if it weren't for Alyson's honest face, I would never have believed her. Now, what I needed was some mindless eating. I didn't want to _think_; thinking led to _feeling_ and feeling led to _missing_ and missing led to _Benjamin_. I'd dreamt about him nearly every night—each time was the same nightmare in which I had not been able to save him. "Ari? Are you coming?" I added pointedly, looking back as I followed after Alyson.

"No… I don't think so," she answered distractedly, her gaze unfocused. "You go ahead. I'll… I want to think for awhile." I turned around and hurried after the musician that had just left us, glancing back at Ariana every few moments. I had never seen her act this way. I couldn't help but wonder if she was all right.

But two days later, we performed for the first time, and I soon forgot about everything else.

Throughout my life, I had faced danger. I'd risked my good name by sneaking into King Braxton's _bed_chamber, of all places. I'd risked my _life _fighting off his assistant. I'd been confronted by a dangerous mercenary about his charge. And yet, with our first night of performing, my hands were shaking uncontrollably. "I can't do this," I told Kailyn, taking yet another gulp of water. "You'll be fine," she promised, shaking her head. We were nearing the village we were due to perform in—well, I say "due to perform" very lightly. I think we just sort of showed up and hoped that people gave us coins, even though Helen insisted she had _contacts _in every village from the Walled City to the capital. Ari, Tristan and I weren't entirely ready; Ari was supposed to show off a little bit in one of Spencer's fencing demonstrations, and Tristan was going to act. I was going to tell fortunes—I still wasn't entirely clear on how to do _that_, so I figured I'd just use my creativity—and, of course, I did have an evening of storytelling ahead of me.

In the end, I'd decided not to use my original story. I'd discussed it with Kailyn, and she suggested that I maybe ought to stick to something a little "safer" for my first night. I could see why this was a good idea, as I was so nervous that I was having trouble remembering my own name. "In the days of old," I recited to myself, "long before your first kings rose to power, there was a young girl…"

"Marielle, would you just _stop_?" Tristan groaned from behind me, where he was walking with Marc. "You're making _me _want to vomit." Tristan was the only one of us newcomers to have a large role in the little play. He'd picked up the lines much more quickly than anyone else had, and so Helen, who I was starting to rather dislike, had decreed that Tristan would replace Maxwell as the male lead. This was because, no doubt, Tristan actually looked something like an adult, whereas the tall and gangly Maxwell truly _looked_ like an awkward adolescent. And Tristan could act, which was only _slightly_ important.

"I can't help it, I'm nervous!" I squeaked, ducking a low branch and wishing I could stop shaking. It was nearly sundown, and fireflies were starting to appear, their yellow-green lights dotting the forest. I could see the village in the distance; not much farther now. I fiddled with the fabric of my neckline, wishing that I was wearing something that wasn't quite so revealing. Helen had discovered my talent for accents quickly, and had decided that it would add an air of  
"mystery" to the troupe if I spoke _only _in a thick, mysterious accent and wore _only _the clothes that a Southern gypsy would wear. And I, being me and wanting to keep a low profile within the troupe, agreed. I had not counted on the fact that the "clothes" consisted of a pair of loose, soft green trousers—which were comfortable—and a low-cut black bodice-type _thing _with a long-sleeved tunic draped underneath it—which was not. I felt awkward in the bodice, especially because it was quite low-cut in the front and excessively embellished. And it was impossible to wear proper undergarments with it. As a consequence, I spent most of my time sitting upon a stool or log or _something_, resting my elbow on my knee ever-so-casually and leaning forward so that I was covering myself up a little more. I professed to hate it, but, as awkward as it made me feel, I thought that I definitely looked older and, with some of Kailyn's cosmetics, prettier. Helen thought I looked foreign. Ariana thought I looked exotic. _Tristan_ thought I looked like a whore, and didn't hesitate to tell me so every chance he got.

As we neared the village, Kailyn and Marc caught each other's eyes and took off for the village. She skipped and spun and twirled, as if to an imaginary drumbeat; a child nearby, maybe a little older than Bethanne, started to laugh. "Mama!" he cried, running inside the nearest cottage, "Mama, come and see!" It was amazing, what happened then; people came out from every house, from every tavern, from every shop, just to watch us. When Maxwell joined in, belting out unintelligible lyrics in a tricky tune, the applause grew louder. Everyone appreciated the spell that was cast by the dancing, and in time, the village square was filled with viewers.

As Kailyn and Marc finished their dance, Alyson and Maxwell took their places in the center of the square. Most of the villagers sat and lingered, and I realized in time that it was really Helen who kept their interest. Her pace was quick—in fact, almost as soon as Alyson had stood up to receive applause, Helen was there, ready to begin the demonstration she'd prepared with her horse. Now, _that_ was entertaining. Bossy and rude though she was, Helen could _ride_. She had incredible presence, and her lightning-quick tricks and feats were as amazing as they were clever. She knew how, I thought, watching, to keep an audience's attention. There was no self-consciousness, which would become my biggest foe in my career as a storyteller; there was just Helen, and either you liked her or you didn't, but you still had to appreciate her performance. It was truly amazing. Spellbinding. Heart-stopping. And I, of course, was supposed to go right after her.

"Thank you," Helen swept a curtsy while still standing, barefoot, on the back of her horse. She was done. I began to sweat. "And now, may we please present our storyteller… a lady whose travels and circumstances have given her the opportunity to record and to learn many exciting tales, of lands both near and far, of princes and servants alike!"

Oh, my goodness. _Breathe_.

Numbly, I made my way to the very center of the square. Every eye was on me, except for maybe one crazy old man who was talking to empty air, and a few babies. The sunset was directly behind the crowd, burning into my eyes. Wonderful. I was blind.

"In the—" I began, my voice coming out as a squeak. I cleared my throat and started again, keeping track of the accent in my mind the way singers did their pitch. "In the days of old…"

And that was it; I lost myself in the story. I know that at times I went too fast, and my inflection wasn't so good in some areas, but, overall, I felt that I had done a good job. The story was a retelling of the classic tale of _Cinderella_; I'd tweaked it, and given the faerie godmother a bit of a bigger role, so that she was the guardian figure instead of the title character's odd collection of birds. And, of course, I gave the prince a name: Benjamin. I knew that Ari sat up and listened a little closer when I mentioned it. I'd meant to say Felix, I cursed in my head while I continued smiling and talking. _Felix, Felix, Felix is a better name! _Now I would have to deal with questions from Ariana. But, as I talked, I could see Ariana looking more and more uncomfortable, and I got the idea that she had not noticed at all. "The prince saw the young lady, dazzling in her golden gown, and fell more deeply in love with her," my voice rang out, and I watched for her reaction; her eyes slid from the floor to where Tristan stood, and then back again. I felt myself inhale sharply as the applause began. So this was how it was going to be; my vision at Vallombrosa's had been correct. Oh, Ari, I thought, swallowing as I curtsied. This was going to make a mess of things—a fine mess, indeed. But, then again, what did I know? I still had hope for me and Ben, especially now that I had proof I was a witch of sorts. I was learning, thanks to Vallombrosa's spellbooks, and so maybe, if I played my cards right, we had a chance together. And it wasn't as if the king and queen were doing such a fine job picking out Ari's consorts and future husbands. Better Ariana and Tristan, I thought as I went to sleep that night, which could hardly last more than a few weeks, than Ariana and Braxton. Now, _that_ was a union that I would go to any lengths to avoid.

Our troupe became closer as the days went by; Ari, Tristan and I fit in well, which surprised me. I was able to relax, especially around Kailyn and Alyson, who didn't know our secret but who I still really liked anyway. Also, I had noticed the startling changes in Ariana—and in myself. Whenever I was with the troupe, minus Helen, I was free; free of all the restrictions and rules that had applied to court life, free to be whoever I wanted, the way I had been with Ben. It was such a relief to be able to look the people I met in the eyes, to wear my hair either loose or pulled back only with a ribbon, to never have someone criticizing my every move. The difference, I knew, was the lack of authority. I was fifteen—at home, I was in a strange and awkward phase, in which I had already officially come of age but was widely considered too young for marriage. But here, they saw me as an adult. An equal. There was nothing that I couldn't do, aside from anything criminal. If I was tired, I could sleep, and have no one tell me otherwise, except for maybe Helen. For the first time in my life, I saw possibilities open up before me other than marrying a lord and having children and only dreaming about adventures. I felt different; I was _happy_.

If I was slightly different, the change in Ari was radical. Her pale skin was lightly tanned and always flushed with color, her short, dark hair had grown a little lighter in the sun, and her brown eyes sparkled. If I had come alive here, with these people, then Ariana most certainly had. The change wasn't only physical—no, she, too, was more open. It seemed to me that every barrier that she had ever been taught should exist, Ari had broken down. Apparently, this did not exclude barriers involving who she was supposed to fall in love with. Still, I simply watched Ariana and Tristan grow closer, keeping silent. They would figure it out in due time. And if it didn't work, then it didn't work. I didn't see how it could, but even those thoughts seemed unimportant, away from all of the restrictions of court life. Clearly, we all loved being in the troupe.

I also felt solidarity with the others. It seemed that the problems of love and arranged marriages were more common than I had thought. Even Kailyn was entangled in one, which she explained one night to all of us—save for Helen, Spencer and Daniel, who were off somewhere in the village—was based on more than convenience or money. She was engaged to an elf named Santiago, whom she was actually quite fond of.

"He's my father's closest friend," she sighed, pulling her knees to her chest. We sat in the village square, drinking ale we'd somehow gotten (Ari was persuasive) from a local tavern. How late it was, I couldn't guess, but all the villagers had already gone to sleep, and it was just our group seated around the fire. "He offered to marry me, and my father said yes. I don't mind it, it's just…" she trailed off. "I don't feel as if I'm _supposed _to get married. I don't really want to. It's not Santiago's fault."

"I don't think she should, if she doesn't want to," Maxwell chirped, a golden shimmer appearing around his face, and I shook my head, putting my mug of ale down. All right, so I'd never actually had anything stronger than half a glass of wine before. Still… what _was_ that? Dimly, I recollected seeing the glow before, although at the moment I wasn't sure I was completely sober. At least, my articulation was suffering, and I realized, gripping the grass with one hand, that the world was starting to spin. I'd only had one mug. Or was it two? I couldn't count anymore. And it was hard to tell when Alyson kept filling it up without your asking. Wonderful. Regardless, I was feeling the ale's effects on me while also realizing what they were—it was as if I felt them on one level and analyzed them on another.

"Do what you feel is right," Alyson advised Kailyn, turning to look at us from where she sat on the ground, braiding Bethanne's long auburn hair. As she glanced at her daughter, her face softening, the same glow appeared. I shook my head, blinking. I was feeling an urge to blink quite a lot, actually. "If you don't want to marry him, then you shouldn't."

"What do you think?" Kailyn sighed, addressing me directly, and I jumped. Oh, let's see, my parents hated each other, and I was in love with someone who could probably never marry me; my closest friend was engaged to a psychotic king but _also _in love with someone she could never, ever marry; and my brother and his wife were so gooey and syrupy-sweet about their relationship that I could hardly stand to be around them for more than five seconds, no matter how much I loved them both. Yes, I was the _perfect _person to go to for advice about marriage.

Thankfully, none of this came out of my mouth, even though it almost did. I was having trouble controlling my words. "I, um, I think…" my eyes seized upon the flames in front of me, and I swallowed to clear my throat. "… that love is a lot like a fire. There has to be a lot of kindling for it to burn, or else it will die."

…_What?_

"Aye," Tristan was nodding while the rest of the group merely looked at me. "The whore speaks true." He caught my eye and winked, raising an eyebrow at my half-empty mug. I flushed crimson and pushed it away with one hand, yanking the bodice up with the other. Grinning, Tristan grabbed _my _mug and downed it in one gulp before I could react. I reached for it and missed, my response delayed by a good two seconds.

"No! Give it back—!" Tristan continued to hold it out of my reach, moving it even as it appeared to already be moving. "Stop it, look—" He put it down, and snickered when I missed _again _before giving up. "I swear to drunk I'm not God—I mean—for heaven's sake, Tristan, that was _mine_!" I groaned, throwing my shoulders back in frustration. Never mind the fact that I wasn't entirely planning on finishing it. "And I am nota—" I lowered my voice, uncomfortable with the word, "_whore_. Is it your _purpose _to torment me?"

"Oh, please. If I didn't, someone else would," he pointed out, smiling. "You know that's true. And I wouldn't say it if you wore something else." I snorted. I didn't have to agree with him.

"Well, true or not, it's cruel and—and unfair. Why don't you pick on one of them?" I demanded, crossing my arms as I jerked my head towards any one of the people sitting around us and hating that my vision wouldn't quite focus. Kailyn had already moved on, asking Ari for advice.

"Because they aren't half as fun," Tristan grinned widely, shrugging his shoulders. "You have more satisfying reactions. I know that, come what may, I can always count on Marielle to throw a temper tantrum when it's appropriate to do so." I burst out laughing.

"Please, you make me sound like Bethanne." I pointed to Alyson and Daniel's little girl, who just that morning had been lying in the dirt, kicking her heels because her mother would not let her keep a passing _bullfrog_, of all things. As much as I loved Alyson, her daughter was spoilt rotten.

"That's just about right," he chuckled, and I shot him a death glare across the flames.

"I'm not that bad!" I cried indignantly. Goodness. Mood swings.

"No, not quite. You do remind me of my sister, though, of Irene," Tristan commented, his tone turning more thoughtful. "A little scattered, but she still means well." He sighed. "She always means well."

We were quiet for a moment, looking into the fire. I glanced up, once, at Tristan's face, and wondered what he was giving up, leaving his family, if only for this month. I mean, he'd put his entire life on hold, and I knew that he wouldn't leave us until he knew we were safe. I'd seen the way he looked at Ari—after all, no matter how blind _she_ was, I certainly wasn't. And, like I said, I'd used my newfound powers to peek into the future, where I'd seen them together. It was uncertain, that much I knew. But the future, as far as I could tell, was dependent upon whatever the scenarios and feelings were at the time the fortune was told. I had no reason to assume his feelings—or hers—would have changed. What would Tristan have lost, once we were back home? Or Ari? "For what it's worth," I said, breaking the silence, "you remind me of my brother, Johan. Only when you're mad or focusing on something, though."

"Only then?" Tristan teased, eyes wide as he feigned innocence.

"Yes," I answered, sitting back as the words spilled out of my mouth. "He tends to look… right through you. Like he only sees _you_, and—and more than you at the same time." _What are you saying? _My brain demanded, and I shook my head in an attempt to clear it.

"And I do that?" Tristan's voice rose a little, as though he were stunned by the very idea.

"All the time." It was my turn to shrug and act nonchalant. "You sound as though you haven't noticed."

"I suppose I thought everyone was like that," he said, sounding surprised. "So, no, I haven't noticed."

"Well," I got to my feet, feeling a faint smile, "I can think of someone who has." And then before I could think better of it, or maybe because of my current state, I glanced pointedly in Ari's direction. He followed my gaze, and the teasing smile dropped straight off his face. It was only in that moment that I realized what I had just done. Suddenly, I felt sort of sick; as if I shouldn't have said that, as if, by doing so, I was going to make them _both _miserable as well as losing my own chance. My chance for what, I didn't know—Ben was back in the Walled City by now, and I wouldn't have time to see him before we left for the Bright Isles. Ari's happiness had no effect on that. Still, I felt as though I had failed myself. "Forget Ben. Forget everything," I told myself, a little louder than I intended to, and Tristan looked up at me, confused. "I'm still thirsty," I told him, grabbing my mug from his hands, hating myself for doing so and wanting to  
"forget everything" at the same time. A kind of peaceful oblivion would be nice, if only for a little while. And, just once, I'd like to have a dreamless sleep.

Funny how that never quite works out the way you want it to.

"Good morning, darling," Ariana's voice penetrated my skull, her words throbbing in my ears. I opened my eyes groggily. Images of the previous evening burned before my eyes—there was the crowd, cheering, some man whose fortune I'd told, and Ariana, winding a lock of black hair around one finger as she leaned in the doorway of the local tavern, trying to get free ale for us all. And then there was me, taking my mug back from Tristan. Past that, everything was blurry, and I found suddenly, through my pounding headache, that I actually didn't _want_ to remember.

"Go away," I ordered Ari, curling into a ball. There's a switch, I realized suddenly; I was telling the princess what to do. I realized dimly that I was still in my clothes from the night before, which was actually a good thing, considering my current situation.

"How do you feel?" She knelt down beside me, and I groaned, trying to swallow through my dry throat. My stomach churned, and I was going to be sick. Soon. Still, I tried to answer.

"How do you _think_ I feel? I _feel_ like—oh goodness—" and before I could start vomiting, Ari had a bucket ready at my lips, one hand out to hold back my hair. _She has to be the best friend in the world._

"Better?" she asked, patting my trembling arm.

"No," I gasped, coming up for air. "That's _disgusting_."

"And what have we learned?" Ariana's voice was singsong-y, and not in a good way. I got the feeling that she had done this before, somehow. Well… Spencer was a drinker, and so was Helen.

"I don't even know," I groaned, collapsing back onto my sleeping area. "No more ale for me? I mean—wait. Where's—" Kailyn was gone, her blankets left crumpled; that was unlike her. Ari smiled wryly, counting off on her fingers as she named names.

"Same place as Tristan, Spencer, Marc, and Helen."

"Which would be?"

"The same place you are."

"I see." I managed to sit up, rubbing my probably-bloodshot eyes. "I can't believe this. I can't believe any of this. I mean, me? Really? Please, tell me," I implored, "did I do anything completely idiotic?"

"Well…" Ari thought a little longer than was necessary, probably to punish me, and I squirmed in agony. I couldn't bear it. Stupid pride. "Not really. Except that I did learn a little more than I would care to about the Revolution. But the others weren't in such a state as _quickly_ as you were, necessarily, but they were, too. I doubt that Kailyn, for example, remembers anything. So don't worry too much." I groaned. She knew me too well. "Maxwell, however, started asking me questions this morning. Questions such as _how many languages does she speak _and _who is Benjamin_?" Her voice indicated a question beyond the words, and I groaned. What had I _said_? I could remember situations, but whatever had come out of my mouth were now lost forever. And then it hit me.

"I didn't say anything about our little—secret, did I?" I gasped, adding horror to a mountain of guilt and regret.

"Nothing that would give us away. But you started… before you fell asleep, you were talking about something you'd seen. And from the way you talked about it, it sounded like it hadn't happened yet."

"Was it important?"

"It sounded like it was. You were very adamant that you should remember." Her voice was expectant, anxious, even, and as I closed my eyes, I felt like a failure. I'd never remember the vision. Worse, I didn't _want _to remember.

"I can—" I tried to center myself, but my head hurt too much and I was trembling from throwing up. "I can't right now. I'm sorry. I'll talk to Maxwell, tell him it was important. Right now, though, I think I need to—" and before I could finish, I had grabbed the bucket again. While I was busy retching, I wondered what Johan would say if he could see me now—what Ben would say if he could see me now. Johan would probably laugh at me and then decide to take up an incredibly loud and obnoxious musical instrument, right outside the tent. Ben would probably… I sighed, too embarrassed to finish the thought, but I forced myself to continue. He would probably be very disappointed in me. Either that or he would find it wickedly amusing.

I mean, it didn't matter how much older I _looked_ in the storyteller's cosmetics and outfit; I wouldn't be sixteen for another two months. I flopped back down and stared at the canvas ceiling above my head while Ari smiled and left the tent, chuckling while I wondered why I always had to make things sound worse than they were. That, of course, didn't stop me from enjoying that talent in my own overdramatic, miserable way. Imagine this: a fifteen-year-old runaway, wearing a too-tight, too-low bodice and too much rouge and lounging, having been _drunk_, of all things, in someone else's tent.

Dear goodness. I sounded like a whore. Maybe Tristan was right.

I shut my eyes, wishing that every single bird in the forest would drop dead, and tried to go to sleep. _You wanted adventure, you got it, _my little governess-voice whispered. _Exactly like some heroine from a faerie story, isn't that right? Independent, on your own. How's that working out for you?_ Oh, welcome to adulthood. As I headed back to nightmare-land, I decided quickly that I needed to keep a closer eye on myself for the next—well, forever. I had no intention of ever ending up in this situation again.

And the fact that I felt as about the same as if I was bleeding out my eyes had _nothing _to do with this decision whatsoever.

**So… what do you think? A bit of a different side of Marielle, yes? Lumiere Hikari will probably tell you that these last scenes gave me fits and stressed me out and that I obsessed about them to no end. She is right about THE SECOND PART, not the FIRST or THIRD. I had originally planned to put **_**why **_**the chapter was rated T, but "alcohol abuse and innuendos involving young teens" sounded **_**really **_**bad. Also, the little "I swear to drunk I'm not God" phrase is one of my personal favorites, and kudos to whoever coined it.**

**But, on a more serious note: I got back from Prom just a few hours ago, and I've been worrying about my classmates and friends for days. So I just want to pass along the message: please, **_**do not**_** drink if you are underage. And no matter how old you are, never, ever drink and drive. Seriously. Sorry for the public service announcement on , but I feel like everyone can use this warning once in a while. Thanks, everyone. Please be safe this Prom season if you're in high school, God bless, and please review!**


	15. Chapter Fifteen

**Chapter Fifteen**

**--Ariana--**

Having spent the past nine years with Marielle, some of her strange quirks had rubbed off onto me; maybe her penchant for "feeling clean" was one of these. Whatever the case, by the fourth day without bathing, I could not stand it. Not only were we not bathing, as was fairly typical back home, but we were sleeping in the dirt _and_ had no access to the perfumes and fragrances I was used to. I felt absolutely disgusting. This was not good.

"Since when did you become so vain?" Marielle teased when I told her I was going to bathe in the stream with a bar of soap I'd bought at the last village we'd performed in, and to warn me if anyone was coming by, please. "I will, I will," she'd promised, waving me off with one hand and handing me a dry cloth with the other. "This will help you dry off, and I checked—I just learned a hearing magnification spell, and there's nothing in the water that might, you know, eat you or bite you or rip your head off."

"Good to know," Kailyn had commented wryly from where she sat in the tree above us. "Ariana, I can see for quite a bit from up here; I'll tell you if I see somebody."

"Thanks," I smiled thinly, wishing that my little announcement had stayed with Marielle only. I hadn't noticed Kailyn up there. It wasn't that I didn't like the Elfin girl—quite the contrary. Kailyn was nice, and amusing, but I simply didn't know her as well as I did my (now, admittedly, former) lady-in-waiting. And it didn't help that the last time I had seen her she was vomiting into the bushes while Joseph held back her hair. Charming.

Clutching the cloth and the soap, I headed towards what I knew was a deeper and slower part of the stream. Secluded, and quiet, the little pool was off just a few feet from the path, but nobody would be able to see me from there, thanks to the incline of the road. I'd checked. And rechecked. Glancing first to my left, then to my right, and _then_ in front of me and behind me, I stripped off the dress Susanna had given me and left it on the ground. Soap in hand and undergarments fully _on_—heavens, I wasn't entirely reckless—I slipped into the water.

It was cold—a shock to every one of my senses, but I loved it. I'd learned how to swim when I was young, during one of my nursemaid's trips to the lakeshore, and I marveled at how quickly it came back to me. Swimming had always been surprising to me; I loved the sense of weightlessness, of floating in the emptiness. Quickly, I worked the soap into lather and washed first my hair and then the rest of me, wanting to spend time enjoying the cool water and the clear blue sky overhead.

I was treading water, my eyes shut, when I heard footsteps on the dirt path. Maybe it was Marielle, I thought hopelessly, darting back against the bank of the stream so that whoever was approaching wouldn't be able to see me, and thinking that the Marquian people should build a monument to my stupidity. But then they spoke, and already I recognized the voices; one low, one slightly higher—Tristan and Maxwell.

_Damn._

Quickly, I ducked underwater and kicked to the space behind the waterfall, where it was definitely too dark to see through. "No," I could hear Tristan saying, "just wait, I'm going to get some water." Oh, of _course_, I thought bitterly, pulling my legs to my chest so that I sort of floated in a ball, my wet chemise sticking to my skin, and trying not to think about water snakes. Tristan's blurry form was visible through the curtain of water; I could clearly see him bending over to fill his flask from the street, and hoped that he drank all the soap I'd just put in the stream. Tightness rose in my chest, and I bit my lip, praying that he wouldn't see me.

Be that as it may, I couldn't help leaning over slightly so that I could see in one of the breaks in the waterfall; Tristan stood, looking almost as if he was talking to himself, with his arms crossed. My heartbeat sped up as he turned towards me, and I shot underwater, praying that he hadn't seen me—or, at the very least, hadn't recognized me.

I held my breath, watching and waiting; he left after just a few seconds. After a full minute, I felt comfortable enough to swim out from behind the waterfall. _Well, you're clean, and that's all that matters_, I heard a little voice whisper, but I still shivered, my cheeks pink, at how close I'd come to being seen. _That_ awkwardness would be too much to bear. I dressed in increments, still damp, and hoped that I would dry out by soon. Quickly, soap forgotten, I hurried off towards our fire, where half a dozen wooden mugs still littered the ground. I smiled to myself, happy that _I_ hadn't lost my senses entirely the night before. An hour into our little party, Alyson took it upon herself to cut various people off from ale. She let Helen drink as much as she wanted to, and by then it was too late for Kailyn, but she kept Marielle functional, for which I was grateful. Whatever the case, a clean, albeit tired, Marielle was sitting at the fire next to a smug Alyson and a pale Kailyn. Bethanne was off with her father, I was sure, and so I sat down next to them.

"Feeling better?" I teased Marielle, who promptly turned red. Kailyn laughed. Marielle had, predictably, woken up with a terrible headache, and after I'd spent a few minutes teasing her, she'd gone back to sleep. I hadn't seen much of her until that moment.

"Much," she answered shortly, biting her lip. "Oh, and Ari…" she lowered her voice, indicating Alyson and Kailyn with her eyes. "I can't tell what he's doing. It seems as if he's stopped looking, but I'm not sure." She meant, I realized with a jolt, Braxton. "And no luck fixing the mirror, either." She shook her head, and then looked around once. "But what about you? You look rather… flustered."

I gave a very forced laugh, my heart speeding up. I could never tell her what happened—I'd never hear the end of this. "I'm fine, please, don't worry, everything's wonderful." _I am a terrible liar_, I remembered, too late. "Nothing happened. We're fine, all fine." She looked at me with one eyebrow raised, Tristan-style, and I felt my face grow warm. The sun was setting; in a few minutes, supper would be ready, and I watched as Alyson concentrated on stirring the contents of the pot in front of us. I was, and had always been, a terrible liar.

"What happened?" Marielle asked, concerned, and Alyson and Kailyn leaned forward. I didn't say anything—maybe she would drop it—and concentrated on plucking at a string on my dress. "Ari. Please, tell me. Are you hurt?" Damn, the string was stubborn. "Ariana Bethanne Kellyn Marie, tell me what—oh, dear goodness," Marielle looked at me, mouth dropping open in dismay as it hit her. "He didn't see—"

"No," I cut her off hastily. Kailyn and Alyson had realized what had happened as well, and started snickering. Marielle was laughing silently, her shoulders shaking. "I wasn't completely—he was just—he was there, and so I hid, and—it's not funny!" I cried, thumping my fist on the ground for emphasis. My face had to be about the color of a tomato by this point; my so-called "friends" responded by laughing harder.

"And," Marielle added in mock-seriousness, for once managing to keep a straight face, "we are all quite clear upon who the 'he' in question is?"

"Oh, yes," Kailyn grinned, just as Alyson snorted, "Definitely." _Well_, I realized, feeling horribly stupid, _I only have a few secrets left_.

"_Damn _it, first the inn, and now this—" I exclaimed, but stopped myself. However, it was too late: Marielle had caught my words as easily as if she'd used a net. _Trapped_, I thought as a determined glint appeared in her eyes.

"What about the inn?" she asked innocently, her green eyes widening ever-so-slightly as her rabid curiosity awoke. "What happened there? Was it while I was—gone that one time? Which inn? I need to know!"

"No, _you_ need to drink more often," I snapped, remembering her nonsensical words the night before. "Then you wouldn't be lucid enough to ask me these questions." Alyson snickered as Marielle turned bright red. She had already, I supposed, turned over a "new leaf."

"I would so," Marielle spluttered, crossing her arms self-consciously.

"By the way, Marielle," Kailyn said coolly, a sly smile creeping across her features, "I meant to ask you. Who is Ben, and why exactly would he not approve?" I burst out laughing as Marielle made a noise like strangled cat as she turned to me, furious.

"You," she stumbled over her words, "You told me that she—" I shrugged.

"Believe you me, I thought that she wouldn't, what with all the dancing and the singing…" … Among some _other_ things, but I didn't have to say _that_. I shrugged, smiling wryly at Kailyn and feeling quite grateful to Alyson that I hadn't fallen into the same trap that she had. The elf quirked one corner of her mouth up in an odd half-smile while we continued to laugh. I was feeling much more cheerful; they appeared to have forgotten the whole scenario involving myself and Tristan.

Unfortunately, Marielle had not. "Ariana," she whispered in her scariest voice, "if you don't tell me right now what happened back at whatever inn, then I will go to Tristan and _tell him_ what he just almost saw." I gulped. Marielle was terrible at cards, partially because she was bad at keeping the rules straight and partially because hated to bluff, saying that it made her so nervous that it rendered her typical lying skills useless. And I knew she wasn't bluffing now. She would do it. I was aware that Alyson and Kailyn were watching, their eyes and wicked smiles wide in the girlish delight of a scandal, and swallowed. I couldn't deny anything any longer.

"It was the first one," I spoke only to Marielle, my shoulders relaxing as I gave up. "I was—well, I was sleepwalking, and I went back to what I thought was our room. I didn't realize until the next morning that it wasn't." I tried to laugh, feeling the embarrassment flood my cheeks.

"So, technically, you—" Marielle began, her eyes merry, but stopped after a moment, trying not to laugh and wondering, I knew, how to phrase what came next.

"—slept with him," Kailyn finished, sniggering. Of course, she had no such reserves.

"Only in the most _innocent_ sense of the phrase," I tried to defend myself, but I was laughing, too, by this point. The irony wasn't lost on me: the princess's various forays into awkward situations. It would make a wonderful play.

"And of _course_ you were sleepwalking," Alyson managed to say with a straight face.

"Oh, definitely," Marielle agreed. I realized what they were implicating, and didn't even bother to deny it. Why should I? There was nothing I could say that would salvage the situation, and even if there was, my friends already knew everything. I couldn't convince them I'd been lying—in fact, it was almost ridiculous how often I'd been thrust into uncomfortable situations with Tristan.

"Ugh, why has all of this _happened _to me?" I moaned, pressing my face into my hands.

"I can tell you why," Marielle told me, and I looked up at her. She seemed to realize that she suddenly had an audience—one comprised, at any rate, of me, Alyson, and Kailyn—and so she straightened her dress and squared her shoulders. "Now, when I was younger, I was reading—"

"You're always reading," I cut her off, my only weapon against them being interruption and an attempt at humor. Marielle gave me a glare; I knew that she _hated _being interrupted.

"Anyhow, I _learned _from my reading that, in the event of two human beings in close quarters—or they could be far away from each other and not _humans_, it really didn't specify—"

"Marielle, please, get to the point," Kailyn interrupted, and Marielle turned her glower upon the unfortunate elf maiden instead as her words became more hurried.

"Ariana and Tristan are suffering from a simple case, discovered in the Year of the Queen Lydia IV—"

"Mari_elle_!" Kailyn and I said together, and she threw up her hands.

"Why do you always—fine, fine, you win," she hissed, and waited a beat. Just before I was ready to strangle her, Marielle sighed out an answer: "Pent-up sexual tension," she said coldly after a dramatic pause, and I felt my face, which had been blessedly cool for the past few moments, burn hot as a dragon's flame.

"_What_?" I squeaked as the others, Marielle excluded, erupted into raucous and uncontrollable laughter. "I mean—I'm still—we aren't like that—we haven't—what kind of—"

"What?" Marielle, blinking with genuine innocence, looked at me with imploring eyes. Then, what Alyson, Kailyn and I had interpreted versus what she had _said_ registered in her mind, and she made a face. "Please, be mature. Alyson, you're an adult, please just—it's just the _term_, for goodness's sake! Fine, then, I will explain—Ari is constantly hampered by tension of a sexual nature towards Tristan, and vice versa. It's not… oh, for heaven's sake," she pursed her lips and waved her arms to illustrate her point. "Fine, fine, all of you! It's just the _term_." Then, to herself: "See if I ever try to explain anything to them again."

"We are _friends_," I managed, my cheeks burning.

"Oh, so now you're _friends_," Kailyn observed dryly. _I probably deserved that._

"Listen to me," I said, my voice louder than the laughter as I babbled. "This is not _pent-up sexual tension_, whatever that means. It's just friends being friends, and sometimes, awkward things happen, because that's _just what happens_ with _friends_!"

"What's going on?" an uncomfortably familiar voice asked, and the others went off into a fresh peal of laughter. I felt the blood drain from my face. This could not be good for me, all this blushing and then going white.

"Um, nothing," I stammered, getting to my feet and swiveling to face Tristan. He looked at me, a smirk on his face, as if he had heard the whole conversation. Or as if he had seen me in the stream. Or as if he had somehow realized that I had slept _next to him_ back at the inn.

I was keeping way too many secrets from this boy. I mean, _really_, it was almost pathetic.

"Helen said to tell you that instead of performing the witch skit next week, we're doing the faerie one," Tristan said, eyeing us carefully. Marielle's arms were crossed and she was muttering to herself, and Alyson and Kailyn both looked as though they desperately wanted to tell Tristan what I'd told them, their lips trembling with the effort of holding back such secrets. He looked at them, and then at me, for a long moment. After the pause, he shook his head and, grumbling to himself, stalked off—presumably to find Maxwell or Joseph or some other, sane person to converse with.

I nodded at his words, belatedly; the faerie skit was one we'd only been working on for two days. It told the story of a pair of young lovers, Rosa and Anton, who met an untimely demise due to the wicked faerie Velissica. "Oh, and Ari?" Tristan called over his shoulder, just as I was sitting down.

"Yes?" I called back, my legs automatically forcing me to stand back up.

"You're the Rosa to my Anton," he grinned, joking, and I laughed, nodding and placing both hands to my heart in the style of some lovestruck girl we had seen at a village just a few nights before.

"Forever and always," I added, blowing him a kiss. He snickered and continued on his way. It was a joke we had made during one of the rehearsals about one of Helen's stupidest lines, but the others didn't know that. I sank to the ground, smiling as I put my hand down.

Alyson whistled, and Kailyn grinned. "Mmm-hmm," she said at me, nodding thoughtfully. "So, aside from the fact that the non_sexual tension_ is so thick I could slice a knife through it, of course _everything_ is normal."

"_Can we please change the subject?_" I hissed, wiping at my now-probably-purple face with one hand. Finally, Alyson took pity on me and seized an opportunity to discuss Daniel's unfortunate habit of spoiling Bethanne with no discipline. I couldn't keep my mind focused on the conversation—and even though, I told myself, he didn't _cause _my inattention, it didn't _help_ that Tristan ended up sitting hardly two inches away from me at supper. Not that I was measuring, or anything.

***

"No, no." Helen critiqued, and I turned to face her. "What is it?" I asked, impatient. The sun was setting, and it was just a week later; I was tired, and ready to perform and then sleep for a week.

"You know the words, right?"

"Of course I do," I struggled to keep my face pleasant and earnest. I was sick of this scene—every other scene was "as good as they'll get"—but, for some reason, this scene was never good enough.

"And the blocking?"

"Yes, I know it." Whenever Helen wanted me to, say, change my facial expression in a play, she always asked me if I knew what I was doing with everything else. Of course I know what I'm doing, I wanted to scream. We've only been working on this for the last week and a half!

"Then, when you _look _at him, try to pretend that you actually _care_ about him!" The "him" in question was Tristan, and I quirked my mouth over to one side, making a sympathetic face at him. Our latest job was to bring the story of Rosa and Anton to life, though it wasn't the evening's performance. The more complicated story was that Rosa and Anton had grown up together with parents who disliked each other, and then they had fallen in love. An evil faerie ended up killing them for various reasons, one of which was trespassing, but the magic of their love was so strong it overpowered death, killing her as well. _Love_ was the point of the story. It was beautiful. Some of the more romantic scenes were a little intense, though, and I was trying to be professional—which, technically, now I was, having been paid for my performances.

"Let's do the scene again," Tristan said clearly, and Helen prowled away, glaring at us. To me, he added quietly, "If we can show the cow we're perfect, then we'll be done for the day and rest until we have to leave." It sounded lovely to me, and so I nodded, trying to ignore the little butterflies that fluttered inside my stomach with one look at his eyes. Butterflies. Ha. _I have these damn dragons clomping around in there._

I hurried back to my starting position next to a large oak tree with long, reaching branches. Tristan took his place in the middle of the clearing. "Go," Helen commanded, and I gritted my teeth before stepping into character and out into the clearing.

"Anton?" I breathed, glancing around before I saw Tristan. "Oh, Anton!"  
"Rosa," he whispered, in character, taking hold of my hands. "You're all right."

"Of course," I smiled as he rubbed my hand absently, and, maybe due to the proximity of Tristan, the usually-clear line between _Rosa _and _Ariana _began to blur. "She—she didn't see you, did she?"

"Who, my mother or Velissica?" _Tristan_ joked, and I found myself wanting to inch closer to him; I was being, I realized with a jolt, _Ariana _again.

"Both," I delivered my line to _Anton_ like a good little actor, slipping right back into _Rosa_.

"Come with me," Tristan implored, leading me over to a log. I sat down. "Rosa, I don't know how to say this," he began, and I felt a tightness rise in my chest as I realized how close he was. _Sexual tension_, Marielle's voice whispered, and then I blinked to erase the thought from my mind. I was _Ariana _again. "And I know that it may be strange—"

"Stop," Helen's voice cut through the moment, and she appeared, her sharp red braid swinging as she moved. "No. No. Ariana, you need to _look at him_."

"I _am_ looking at Tristan," I protested before I could stop myself, leaping to my feet. "I'm looking right at him."

"But you're not holding his gaze. Why aren't you holding his gaze?"

"Well, because—" I stopped talking. I don't know; I found it strange to look someone right in the eyes for too long. It was strange for me; it just was, perhaps because so few people had ever been _allowed_ to look me in the eye back home. I simply wasn't used to it. And Tristan's eyes, being so intense, were often _too_ intense. It wasn't personal, I tried to convince myself. I just couldn't do it.

"Are you insecure?" Helen was relentless, pacing so that she cut a line through the center of the clearing. "Is that what this is?"

"No, I am not insecure," I said through gritted teeth as my face flamed. "I merely—"

"I know!" Helen interrupted me, and I pressed my lips together, angry. _She_ knew? _I_ knew that if I were back home—if I were still being Princess Ariana—she would never _dare _to speak to me so, that I could have her tossed in prison for the next sixty years. Or beheaded, I suppose, though no one had been executed since my grandfather's reign. Tristan caught my expression, and turned to appeal to Helen.

"She _is_ trying, Helen," he tried, his voice soothing. "I mean, it's not as if the audience _cares _whether the actors are looking into each other's eyes."

"Of course they _care_! When you act, you don't _pretend _to look into her eyes—you really _do _it. Now, just let me—" Helen stopped, and she smiled suddenly, in that brusque, abrupt way she had. "I know what to do. Ariana, come here," she commanded, and I went to her, clenching my fists as I did so. _Bitch_, I thought, as I'd heard Spencer call her several times before. "And Tristan, you, too." He obeyed, much to my surprise. Helen clapped her hands together once. "Now. I want you to stand, nose to nose, and look into each other's eyes for a full five minutes."

"What?" I said sharply just as Tristan snorted, "Hell, no!"

"Oh, _hell_, yes." Helen had a look in her eyes that I didn't like. "Unless, of course, you would prefer to be out of this troupe and doing paltry tricks for pedestrians on the streets, in which case, by all means, please repeat that." I studied Tristan out of the corner of my eyes. He looked angry for a moment, and then his face relaxed into his customary stoic expression.

"I suppose," I managed through gritted teeth. _Damn pent-up sexual tension_. This was going to be unbearable.

"If milady commands," Tristan smiled unpleasantly at Helen.

"I do," she confirmed. "Now. I'll count to three hundred."

Tristan stepped toward me, and gingerly leaned forward. I did the same, and then, awkwardly, our noses were literally touching. His blue eyes met my brown ones, and I stifled a gasp, pressing my lips together instinctively. Marielle's list of awkward conversations? _This must top all of them_, I thought as Helen began to count out loud. As the seconds ticked by, it occurred to me that I used to count, albeit differently, to escape from strange or awkward situations. "One hundred… one hundred and one…" _One, two, three_… I thought, but I couldn't get any farther than that. Tristan was almost hypnotizing. Unthinking, I moved a little closer to him, bridging the gap so that our feet touched as well and so that my back was straight. I hadn't been so close to Tristan since I fell on top of him when Marielle cut my hair in the woods. _No sexual tension there_, I thought distractedly. _Just an accident_. "Two hundred and thirty-two…" Unconsciously, I wet my lips, mouth falling open slightly. He was so close. _So close_.

A familiar tightness gripped my chest, and my breathing became shallow as my heartbeat quickened. "Two hundred and seventy…" I turned my head slightly, and hesitated; my entire being crackled with an unnamed feeling as a buzzing filled my limbs, and my eyes, always, stared into Tristan's. My lips were barely an inch from his.

"Three hundred. You're done," Helen barked, and I inhaled sharply before stepping back. I broke the spell, looking down at my boots and then tossing my head, breathing deeply. Something had changed for us; I knew it right then. Whatever strange feelings I had thought I'd had before were now real—and they felt more permanent. I swallowed, hard.

"We should, um," Tristan began, his customary articulacy slipping away as he swallowed, "run the, um, scene again."

"It's too late for that," Helen snapped, stomping back towards camp as a small, shrill bell began to ring. Maxwell. "It's time to leave."

I swallowed, following Helen with wooden legs. During the walk to the village, Tristan and I barely spoke to each other; I blushed every time we did. It wasn't that I was embarrassed, it was just… awkward. I wasn't myself—I wasn't joking with Maxwell or Joseph, and I could hardly pay attention to Marielle, who could definitely tell that something was wrong. Thankfully, though, she left me alone about it and didn't ask questions. I had too much to think about.

**Hey, all! Just an FYI before you click that lovely little green button: I **_**do**_** realize that there is a sudden abundance of more modern terms in this chapter; in part, this is because I decided not to use the acting techniques that were prevalent in the time period the story is set in. Instead, I decided to use the more modern Method and System (kudos to Konstantin Stanislavski in the early 1900s), because it would be more easily recognizable for readers. Also, "blocking" is a theater term that means, loosely, stage directions and actors' motions—I bolded it because I don't think footnotes are possible with this website. Thank you! Oh, and this chapter is the reason the rating of the piece has gone up. I just wanted to be safe. Have a nice day!**


	16. Chapter Sixteen

**Hey, all! Thanks for the awesome reviewing last chapter.**

**Frogster—thanks! I totally agree about feeling clean. I am very much like Marielle in that respect.**

**LaBelled'Italie—thank you!**

**Bingo7—thanks! And I hate it when my face turns all red, and I can feel it… yuck.**

**Lumiere Hikari—thanks so much! And don't worry; in regards to your earlier PM, there is editing going on. Some major editing. But the basic premise is the same.**

**Anonymous—thank you so much for reviewing! Your review made my day. As for happy endings… we shall see.**

**cucumber fairy—thanks for the review! I'm really glad you like this story.**

**And now… on with the show!**

**Chapter Sixteen**

**Marielle**

"Really?" Bethanne asked, staring up at me with wide eyes. "You really met a princess?"

"Once," I told her, and then glanced at Alyson to make sure she didn't care that I was lying. She grinned, and I made a face at her, as a child would. My storytelling adventure for the evening had consisted of one adult story (i.e., lots of betrayals and some fratricide, with a few slight innuendos), and I was sick of thinking about sadness. I'd offered to tell fortunes, but no one had wanted theirs, aside from a few girls my own age that wanted to know who their husbands would be. Well, seeing as I'd been forced to use my "creativity" for that sort of thing, I had told them all that their husbands were nearer than they seemed, and that they should never forget that love is often unexpected. It was appropriately bland advice, and _very_ "tall-dark-stranger"-esque. Vallombrosa would be proud.

Now that the fencing show was over and the adults were now talking to Spencer, asking him to perform one more set, please, the children of the village were rather bored. And, to be honest, so was I. Ariana was sitting, silent, around the fire in the middle of the village square, the others were either showing off or talking to someone, and I had no one to talk to but the squirming three-year-old. "Can you watch her for me, please?" Alyson had asked breathlessly, depositing Bethanne into my lap. Before I could squeak out an "of course," she'd left to get a much-needed meal.

Bethanne had looked up at me, half-asleep, and asked me to tell her a story. I had smiled, unnerved by the sudden request, and stammered out, "When I was talking to the princess—" before realizing who I was talking to. I'd been thinking of something that I had read with Ariana once, and forgotten that my past—and hers—was taboo here. Braxton was still ignoring everything about Ariana; I tried to look only a few days ahead, so I could know whether or not he was going to come for us or if he knew anything. He was not and did not. And so, now, Ari and I were stuck in limbo until we could make it to the Walled City. Then, we could figure out what to do, blending in with every other person there for the competition. That, I assumed, was the "something important" that I hadn't been able to tell Ariana in my inebriated state. That thought didn't belong here, and so I cast it away.

"Now," I set Bethanne on the ground so that she could face me, and then took a sip from a mug of ale that Alyson had given me earlier. "One, and then you're cut off," she'd warned me, and I nodded, feeling awkward as my face flamed. I pushed it away now. "I'm going to tell you a story _about _a princess. Do you like those?" The girl nodded enthusiastically, and I smiled as another child sat down beside her, having heard my words. Despite the sky's suddenly darkening, it seemed that our arrival constituted almost a festival for the village, and all the various regulations regarding bedtimes were turned upside down. "Good. Once upon a time," I began, breathing in the cool night air, "a beautiful princess lived in a castle that had been in her family for generations." This was somewhat arbitrary, but I was making this up as I went along. I cast a sidelong glance at Ari, who was sitting not quite next to Tristan on a bench, albeit awkwardly. He wasn't saying anything, which I found strange. I kept an eye on them while I spoke, dropping my stupid accent. The children probably couldn't understand it anyway. "The princess lived with her family and her friends, and spent her days learning how to be a good queen. But even though she had nearly everything," I let my voice carry over to Ariana, "she was not happy. You see," I leaned towards the children—there were now maybe four—and added conspiratorially, "the princess had dreamed of falling in love for many years. But it seemed to her that every prince she met was spoiled and arrogant."

"So she had their eyes gouged out," suggested one little boy, a newcomer. I felt my smile freeze in place. Goodness, such violence! He reminded me of a miniature Johan.

"Not exactly." Ariana was ignoring me. "But she _did_ kick them out of the kingdom, and warned them never to come back. One day, the princess's parents told her that a new prince had come, and he wanted to marry her. In her eagerness, and in their assurance that he loved her, the princess accepted. But she was wrong. The new prince was ruthless, cunning and cruel, and he possessed magic. Even though he seemed pleasant and kind on the surface, he really planned to steal the princess's—" I paused. Soul? No, too dark. "—heart," I finished. "He planned to steal the princess's heart. But the princess couldn't see this, and so she agreed to marry him. And then the transformation began. First, he took her voice by never allowing her to speak. Then, he took her beauty, by forcing her to only wear cast-off rags. Which," I added to the littler girls as a sort of aside, "doesn't _really_ take away your beauty, by the way. Just covers it." I felt that was important to add. "Anyway, the last thing to go was the princess's heart. The wicked prince tried to steal it from her—but he could not. For," I had a blast of inspiration, "she had already given it to another."

"This is boring," whined the eye-gouging boy. "Why aren't there any dragons or witches or anything?"

"She had given her heart," I continued more loudly, ignoring him, "to—" I stopped for a moment, and threw a glance over where Ariana sat, resting her head on one palm as if she were defeated. I raised my voice again; now I was half-shouting "—a poor warlock. For, you see, when the princess realized that the prince did not love her, she felt free to find one who did." _Not always smart_, I thought, _when dealing with a deranged, sociopathic king. Or mean prince. Or whatever._ "But she felt as if—as if she couldn't tell the warlock." Oh, yes, this princess was definitely starting to sound familiar. _Look up, Princess, look up. Hear me._ "She was—"

"—afraid," guessed a familiar voice from behind me. Ariana. "The princess was afraid." I smiled, pressing my lips together.

"She thought," I continued after a pause, "that if she opened her heart to the warlock, then maybe he wouldn't want it, just as the wicked prince hadn't."

"But the princess had a wise friend," Ari continued smoothly. "And her friend told her that, wherever she went, she would always have the love of her family, her friends, and her people."

"And then," I finished, wetting my lips and trying to smile, "the princess's friend, who was secretly a witch, turned into a fearsome dragon, and gouged out the wicked prince's eyes before eating him. The princess married the warlock—"

"—and the witch married a dragon-loving knight," Ariana added, and I laughed. Together, we finished, "and they all lived happily ever after." There was a smattering of applause—loudest from the rude little boy—and I smiled before turning, for once of my own initiative, to hug my friend. As I let go, I realized that she was looking at Tristan over my shoulder, and that her face was shimmering with a golden light. I swallowed, hard, realizing what it was as I put the pieces together. Maxwell looking at Kailyn; Alyson looking at Daniel; Ariana looking at Tristan. It all fit. Nothing surprised me anymore. I could see love—_I can see love_.

"So you know," Ari smiled, turning back to me as the glow vanished. Though this comment seemed unnecessary to me, I nodded anyway. _Haven't we been over this? _

"I do."

"And you think that my parents—"

"Princess," I cut her off with her title, albeit quietly, "I _think_ that we're out in the middle of the Uhyre Forest, sleeping on the ground and wearing clothes that aren't ours and running for our lives from someone that both your parents and mine deemed safe." I looked at my closest friend for a long moment. Sexual tension jokes aside, I knew that she was miserable. And Tristan had to be as well, no matter how good he was at hiding it. "I think," I finally said simply, silently wishing I had my own poor warlock with me, "that you deserve to be happy, too."

"My good people," I heard Helen cry, shattering the moment, and I stood up hurriedly. In our little production, I played the Dark Faerie Velissica. I was actually a pretty convincing villain, if I did say so, myself. "Ariana, we've got to go. All right, thank you, children!" I called, waving off the few that had remained. "Wait," I whispered to Ariana, feeling a strange tingling behind my eyes. I had come to recognize that as the feel of magic—it came sporadically, and usually took a simple vision for the tingling sensation to stop. Quickly, I drew in a breath, centered myself, and felt my vision turn inward. _A bundle of rags on the forest floor. Hands—wrists tanned, gray gloves—reach for them, take them; blood has stained them. One gold coin, Marquian currency, falls to the ground. "Dead," a voice comes; there is no inflection. King Braxton. "She is dead."_

"My good people," Helen was repeating, and I snapped back to the present. The darkness, thrown into contrast by the light of the fire, seemed strange to me after a trip to the daylight, and I blinked at the pale faces that stared at me over the flames. "We have worked for months and months—" I snorted, trying to work out what my vision had meant "—to bring you this production of one of your own tales—the tale of Rosa and Anton, whose fabled love conquered all. Please, sit back, and enjoy." I took my mask from Alyson, who'd been assigned to props, and grabbed my cloak from Kailyn, who'd been using it. _Dead? Who's dead? _Beside me, Ariana was dragging her fingers through her hair to comb it. I took a deep breath, opening and closing my eyes as I stepped into character. Within a moment, I was no longer Marielle—I was Velissica, who lived to destroy and kill and hate.

Beside me, Rosa and Anton, the fabled couple "whose love conquered all" did not look at each other. _Courage, Ariana_, I thought, and then stepped out into the center of the square. Just before I delivered my first line did I remember that, among the foggy memory fragments from the night before, my vision had been the same.

**I know that this chapter was a little short, but there will be longer ones in the future. Thanks for reading, and please review!**


	17. Chapter Seventeen

**Hey, all! So, summer is finally here, and I have finally finished this story! No, this isn't the last chapter—that's still a long way off. But I did finally get the plot down; it just needs some tweaking. Thanks so much to Frogster for reviewing. Enjoy!**

**Chapter Seventeen**

**-Ariana-**

The beginning of the play, which showed only Velissica's cruelty, went smoothly; Marielle ranted and raved and swore eternal vengeance upon those who did her wrong, and Alyson (her first victim) quailed believably. Kailyn and Maxwell did well as Rosa's parents, and even Helen's brief performance as Anton's mother went well. And then, I gulped, was the first romantic scene—the one we had worked on in the woods.

"Anton?" I called, stepping out and pretending to look for Tristan. _Oh_, I thought sarcastically, _here he was_. "Oh, Anton."

"Rosa!" This time, Tristan hung back for a moment before going to me, taking my hands in his. "You're all right."

"I—of course," I stammered, hating how it was suddenly hard to look him in the eye at all. "Of course," I repeated, bringing our hands up to my face, as I could see Rosa doing. _Stay in character_. "She didn't see you, did she?"

"Who, my mother or the faerie?"

"Both," I giggled nonsensically while the audience remained silent. Half of them hadn't gotten it; the other half was too smart to laugh. It was such a stupid joke, if it could even be called that. I didn't see why Helen insisted on it.

"Then no, she didn't see me. Here, sit down," Tristan implored, and so I sat on a log that Maxwell had been in charge of providing. Thunder rumbled ever so slightly overhead, and I looked at him sharply, breaking character for just a moment. We needed to hurry it up—even though I had little shelter other than my tent to return to, it was better than nothing, and I had no intention of getting caught in the rain. Tristan ignored me, though. "Rosa, I don't know how to say this," he began, sitting precariously next to me. "And I know this may be strange, but I—I feel like—" he stopped, and looked down, but his facial expression gave everything away—just as it was supposed to. I, as Rosa, swallowed hard.

"But, our parents," I said carefully, looking into Tristan's eyes. "They'll never—"

"_Shh_," he gently put a finger to my lips to silence me. "I know our families are… different. But I can't—I mean, I can't stop feeling like this. I don't _want_ to." He was adlibbing, I realized distantly, but I was too caught up in being Rosa to really care. "It's just that… I love you, Rosa. More than I've ever loved anyone else."

"I—" I knew that Rosa wasn't supposed to say anything here. The scene was _supposed_ to end, and I knew Marielle was fidgeting off to the side and waiting for her cue, but I found myself wanting suddenly and desperately to perpetuate it. "I can't continue like this, either," I managed to say, still speaking as Rosa and imagining Helen going berserk. "But then, I just—think about the future, and—"

"We don't have to think about the future." Anton's voice had become hushed, and so he raised it again; _stage voice, stage voice_. "Let's just _be_, here and now." His eyes held me spellbound, and I couldn't breathe or move or speak and then, one thought dominated all: _What would Rosa do?_ The answer was clear enough to me, and so, going on instinct, Rosa took the chance, leaned in, and kissed her childhood friend Anton full on the mouth, to a very stunned audience's applause.

I retired back to the ladies' tent immediately after the performance. Marielle, Kailyn, and I all shared one—Helen had her own, of course, and Alyson slept with Daniel. Maxwell, Marc, Tristan and Spencer shared one, as well, and I could only imagine what that was like. Spencer was always coming and going whenever he pleased, whether it was during the day or in the middle of the night, and Marc (and Kailyn, for that matter) preferred to stay up into the wee hours of the morning. I knew, in part because I'd heard Tristan complain, and in part because I hadn't been sleeping well either. The threat of Braxton catching me stayed, suspended, over my head, no matter _what_ Marielle said he was doing, and even though I could ignore it during the day, it never failed to find me again at night.

But now—and I was secretly glad of the distraction—I had other things to worry about. Like Tristan.

I had kissed him.

I had _kissed _him.

I lay on my back, facing the canvas of the tent, and tried not to move or think. I pretended to be asleep when Kailyn came in, several hours later. My thoughts were too scattered; I couldn't tie any of them down. Aside from the fact that Marielle was muttering nonsense in her sleep about glowing faces and frogs, my mind wouldn't slow down long enough for me to actually drift off. It kept bouncing from Braxton to mercenaries to my parents to Tristan. The longer I was inside the tent, the more trapped I felt—my thoughts seemed to fill up the small, enclosed space. Each time I shut my eyes, I saw Lord Griffyn standing over me, with the cold blade of his knife pressed to my throat—

No.

I didn't need to be having those thoughts, not now.

Trying not to wake Marielle or Kailyn, I slipped out into the night, breathing deeply for the first time. The stars glittered and shone through the trees, while the moon, though not quite full, was large enough to illuminate the ground and bathed everything in silver. I looked at the small rows of tents and the two horses, and actually felt tears come to my eyes. They had been so kind, I thought, my heart aching, and I would have to leave them. Helen, at least, thought that we would be with them for at least the duration of the summer season—and how would she react when we left? And Tristan? He had a contract to fulfill, didn't he? That hurt too much to dwell upon.

And in the next few days, when we reached the Walled City, what then? I wondered, starting to pace in a circle. Braxton was looking for me, and Sir Luis had to be as well. Braxton had hired a mercenary, sent his advisor to find me and bring me back… and all I could do was wait for the assassins, for that was surely next. If only I were home again! But I couldn't go home. For all I knew, he was still there.

"Ari?" I heard Tristan's voice, and I turned, flinching. He stood directly across from me, on the other side of the now-dead fire. My eyes locked with his, and I offered a tiny smile. He returned it for a fraction of a second, and then, embarrassed, coughed and looked down. "You… can't sleep?"

I shook my head. "You can't, either?"

"No," he said softly, making his way towards where I stood, frozen. "Will you—walk with me? Until you're—tired?" he gestured at the woods, and, distantly, I felt myself nod. The air was thick with tension—_sexual tension_, I thought with a repressed smile—and for a moment, we were quiet. The trees were older and taller in the part of the forest we'd never seen before, and the ground had a more worn path than the parts I had already been through. "Do you know where we are?"

"More or less," he insisted, gesturing with one hand; he caught mine with the other. "Don't you trust me, Rosa?" He said it casually, almost as if he wasn't exactly thinking about it.

"I—yes," I stuttered, realizing what he had just called me as my heart skipped a beat. "I do."

And it was true, I realized, stumbling along over twigs and leaves. For the last two weeks, Tristan and I had become real friends; to be honest, I felt nearly as close to him as I did to Marielle. It was a strange feeling, one that I couldn't—and still can't—put into words; it was as if my heart had grown too large for my chest to contain every time I saw him, as if he had become part of me. He knew, now, nearly everything about me that my lady-in-waiting did. I had told him about my parents, and how miserable I had been back home compared to being with the troupe—and he, in turn, had told me about growing up in a home that he couldn't really, he felt, call his own. We were so similar, I thought as we wove our way in and out of trees, in that we were both trapped in futures that we had not chosen. Tristan was bound by his contract with Healer Salus to work with him, and eventually, take over their small business—he had never been given a choice. The only child of a king, I was bound to either take his throne or someone else's. I had always quietly accepted that, but it seemed to me now that new possibilities had opened. I believed that I could be anything—like a healer's wife in a quiet village, for example. Would that be such a terrible fate? _Selfish_, my heart whispered, and I knew that it was. But I didn't want it any less.

And now, thanks to my thoughtless actions, I was sure that these new possibilities—even our friendship—was lost to me forever. _What have I done? _I asked myself, hating myself more and more with every step I took. _What have I done?_

We came to a clearing; the moon shone down through the trees, and stars twinkled at us in the sky above. I could see, however, that some clouds were beginning to streak the sky, and heard the distant rumble of thunder. Well, I supposed, rather bitterly, now was a good a time as any to test whether or not the tents in the camp were waterproof.

"Do you want to run the scene?" Tristan asked suddenly, turning towards me. There was no need to specify _which _scene; I knew what he was referring to. "I mean, we can go back if you want to, but I feel like I should be doing _some_thingproductive."

"Of—of course," I said, shaking my head to clear it from the sudden dizziness. "Whenever you're ready."

I retreated back behind the tree, taking a few deep breaths so that I could slip into Rosa's character. "Ready," Tristan said from the center, and I nodded. "Anton?" I whispered, stepping out into the clearing. And there he was. "Oh, Anton."

"Rosa," Tristan recited, right on cue. "You're all right." He took my hand, and I inhaled sharply, startled, somehow, by his touch.

"Of course," I managed, bringing our hands up to my face, as I could imagine Rosa doing. "She didn't see you, did she?"

"Who, my mother or the faerie?"

"Both."

"Then no. Here, sit down," Tristan implored, and so, after a moment of awkwardly searching for something to sit _on_, I plopped down on a random boulder and felt like an idiot. "I love you, Rosa," he blurted, a few lines too early. But I didn't care—I was scattered enough as it was. "More than I've ever loved anyone else."

"Please, stop," I said hurriedly, getting to my feet and leaving Tristan on the boulder where I'd been. "Tristan, I can't do this. It's too difficult."

"What do you mean?" he demanded, looking as if he would very much like to forget what had transpired earlier that evening. "If this is about—"

"We can talk about it, you know." I cut him off, and silence hung heavy in the air. "It was a kiss. It happened. And I apologize… if I've offended you; I lost my head completely. I was in character, but this… this _tension_… don't you feel it?" I cried, stomping my foot for emphasis. I thought as a rumble of thunder echoed overhead.

"Of course I _feel_ it," Tristan answered swiftly, leaping up and coming to stand beside me. He looked irritated. "_I_ just haven't acted on it."

"Oh, and I suppose that you believe you're making me feel guilty," I snapped as my voice grew louder, folding my arms across my chest. "You are wrong. I don't."

"Well, I'm not the one going around kissing all my friends whenever I feel like it!" Tristan's retort came hot and angry, and for some reason, it made me feel even more indignant.

"Not all my friends!" I was half-shouting. "Just _you_! It's only been just you!" My remark having been punctuated by a surprisingly loud (and convenient) crackle of nearby lightning, I turned away from Tristan. "But, of course," I added in the ensuing silence, my words tripping over themselves, "if you don't want something… similar… to what I want, then I understand." I swallowed hard. "I understand perfectly."

"I—I didn't say that," I heard his voice, and then Tristan was in front of me, carefully taking hold of my shoulders. "I never said that." And, after what seemed like an eternity, he kissed me full on the lips—just as the heavens opened, spilling a sudden downpour and completely drenching us both. Not that we cared; we were still in our own little world.

I pulled back after what felt like a moment but had to be much, much longer, half-laughing, half-crying. "You're amazing, Anton," I whispered, pulling Tristan into a tight embrace.

"I love you, Rosa," Tristan said softly. And, once more, I didn't wait for him; instead, I took the initiative, and leaned to kiss him again.

**So. Finally, right? Ah, well, it's not like you didn't know who was going to end up with who… anyhow, please review!**


	18. Chapter Eighteen

**Anonymous-Thanks so much for your review! "Intense" is a good word for Tristan and Ari. I'm glad you liked the chapter so much!**

**Bingo7-Thanks for your review! I'm glad that this was a "nice surprise" for you to come home to.**

**Lumiere Hikari-Thanks! I love the idea of "Anton" and "Rosa." No West Side Story influences here, are there? ;-) Thanks for your review, and I have a feeling that you in particular are going to like this chapter. Or you'll hate it. Regardless, thanks for your review.**

**Frogster-Thank you for the review! Haha, oh, Helen. She is not happy, as you'll find out soon. And this time around, Marielle's reactions are a little different.**

**Thanks, all of you, and please enjoy!**

**Chapter Eighteen**

**-Marielle-**

Ariana and Tristan returned to camp just _before_ breakfast and just _after_ Helen had gone berserk and threatened to kick all three of us out of her troupe. I'd sat silently while she raged, chewing on the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming back, and considering that it was extremely rude of her to shout at us so, especially since she apparently desperately needed us. I mean, come on—I was the first storyteller she had had in months, and if I was not mistaken, they did earn quite a bit, more than the horse and fencing acts combined. I knew (and Helen knew) that Ari and Tristan's disappearance had nothing to do with me, but we were both still seething when they finally reappeared, hands attached, covered in dirt and looking rather secretive. I swallowed hard, looking sharply up at the sky. _Dear goodness_.

I jumped to my feet and opened my mouth, ready to rush over, stamp my feet, tell them to _never _do that again _ever_… but this time, something held me back. Maybe it was me growing up a little bit, acknowledging that this was not my job; I was not Ariana's mother (nor her official lady-in-waiting, by this point) and she needed to be able to take care of herself for now. Or maybe it just me not wanting to know what had transpired in the last eight hours. And besides, Helen, who was much angrier, got in my way. She appeared out of nowhere, and stalked over to where the two stood, looking ten feet tall. I swallowed again and sat back down, pretending to be absorbed in watching meat sizzle in the pan. It had been Daniel and Alyson's turns to get breakfast, and I still had no idea what it _was_. Veal, maybe? Roast pigeon?

"Where the _hell_ have you been? Wait, no, I don't even _want_ to know—dammit, we've got a show in the city in two days! And last night? What the hell was that? There is no improvisation in these shows! What were you thinking? No, I don't want to hear it—" she held up a hand as if to ward off the retorts that Tristan and Ariana were both ready to hurl at her. I focused instead on Marc and Kailyn, who were sitting next to me and arguing about Maxwell, who was currently still asleep.

"We aren't like that," she was telling Marc, laughing at the suggestion that maybe, just maybe, Maxwell was interested in being more than friends. In the background, Helen continued to rage, which I studiously ignored.

"I know _you _haven't noticed," Marc snorted, and Kailyn sighed, placing her head in her hands in mock-depression.

"I know, I'm so oblivious," she groaned, and I felt my heart stop as Marc's reply came, quick and even, a small glow emanating from his face as he spoke.

"Yes," he said softly, as Kailyn slowly looked up. "Yes, you are." Her eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open; quickly, she wet her lips and ducked her head. _So this is how it's going to be_, I thought in the ensuing silence between the two.

"Just understand me," Helen continued, and I forced myself to look at her as the silence between Marc and Kailyn became too much. "If anyone," she raised her voice, and we all sat up and paid attention, "and I mean _anyone_, should _dare_ to ruin our chances at the Walled City, then I swear, that person will regret it."

Helen spun on her heel and marched off into the forest—to get her horse, I assumed, feeling shaken. How many threats could we take within a month?Marc, who was getting to his feet, snorted. "I would ask," he stood up, giving Tristan a _look_ that said that he certainly would as soon as he had Tristan alone, "but I really don't want to know." _And to be honest_, I thought, watching as the soft golden glow shimmered around both Ariana's and Tristan's faces, _neither do I_.

"I'm absolutely filthy," Ariana announced, breaking into my thoughts as she plopped down next to me on the log.

"Do I get an explanation?" I asked, raising an eyebrow in an imitation of Tristan and failing quite miserably.

"Later," Ari promised, smiling at me. The same glow she'd had just a few seconds ago was emanating from her face right then—only this time it was much stronger, and I smiled simply, trying to fight the jealousy that welled up in my heart. _For your friends to be happy, isn't that what you want?_ A poisonous, very _governess_-esque voice inside of me whispered. _Of course_, I argued silently, my thoughts flashing back to the not-quite-a-kiss with Benjamin, back at the duchess's manor. _I just want to be happy, too_. Ariana glanced towards where the others sat, smiling at Tristan. Quietly, to me, she whispered, "And so my reputation is tarnished beyond repair?" I got the feeling that it was more of a question than a statement—she was looking for confirmation.

"That makes two of us," I shrugged, not really sure what to say. I considered Alyson's satisfied smile, Kailyn's disbelieving smirk, and Maxwell's blank look as he stumbled out of the tent. A pale yellow glow came from his face, too, as he glanced once at Kailyn, and I blinked. _Ooh_. She sure was popular. "But _I _would say that yes, it is." Ari grinned, squeezing my hand once.

"Good."

Marc and Kailyn went on to the Walled City before us, to see her fiancé. Even though she'd wanted to go alone, Marc insisted on coming with her. It would be safer, he claimed, and she grudgingly accepted, knowing he was right. I didn't say anything to Ariana or Alyson or anyoneabout what I'd seen between them; that little spark that suggested that, at least when it came to their friendship, they weren't exactly on the same page. It was none of my business, and so I stayed out of it. In any case, I had a lot to think about; we continued to work on our respective acts during one last day of practice and then, the next morning, we made our final trip.

The Walled City had been built around the river, with iron grates over two places in the wall where the stone and the water would have intersected. These were maintained by a group of magical city workers daily, to keep them from rusting and being ruined beyond repair. Everyone but Helen and Spencer, who had visited the city several times before, kept _oohi_ng and _ahh_ing over the sight of the water, touched with gold from the sunrise, flowing through the city. It _was_ different than the capital that I had grown up around—it was more disciplined, I think, maybe because criminals don't exactly flock to an area known for watchmen, and definitely cleaner. In any case, the citizens seemed more orderly, almost somber, due to the guards on every corner, and though the streets were empty due to the early morning, there definitely wasn't the silent threat of violence that I'd grown accustomed to every time I left the castle. The people seemed nicer as well, though maybe that was because they considered me one of their own. It was strange, though, I noted, that the pennants flying weren't Marquian colors; instead, they were black, as in mourning. I tried not to think about that, though, remembering my _dead _vision. I still did not understand what was wrong. But Ben lived here, I realized suddenly, feeling irritated as my stomach swooped at the thought. That was important in itself.

By the time we finally arrived at the inn, I could see that the city was beginning to come to life. Birds were beginning to soar overheard, chattering and chirping, and a few citizens were beginning to set up stalls to sell their wares. One woman was selling familiars for witches and warlocks, I noticed, as she set up a bold sign in front of her table; still another sold elaborate woodcarvings. I gave a sad attempt to steal away from the group, but ended up being snagged by the Empress of All Things Orderly and Right before I'd gotten close. "You can look at that garbage later! We have a _schedule_!" Helen shouted right in my face. As I had with Jemima, the kitchen wench back home, I bit back on my tongue to keep from screaming back _who_ I was and _what_ could happen to her if I wanted it to. It made me sick to realize I thought of my own power like that. But not enough to make me want to stay silent.

We entered into the inn, where "room assignments" were handed out. I was to share a room with Ari and Kailyn, while Tristan, Maxwell, and Marc had the room next door; Spencer was staying at a different inn entirely, as he'd been contacted by an old friend. Helen, of course, got her own room, and Alyson's family shared one. Bethanne was still cranky from the journey, and I could hear her screeching through the walls.

"I'll have to go shopping later on today," I announced, lounging on my bed and marveling in the comfort. I was used to sleeping on the ground.

"Shopping? For what?" Kailyn perked up a bit. We had all headed off to our own rooms by that point—Ari was taking advantage of the full bathtub behind a screen to bathe, and I was planning our day with Kailyn, who was unusually quiet (and, I suspected, hungover). We had to be ready to perform that night, but I had it down to a science by now.

"Well, we sort of stand out. And it's always nice to have new clothes. Besides, I've never been to an open marketplace before," I added, stretching. The part about standing out was true; the women of the Walled City, from what I had seen, all wore short, sleeveless tunics with hose and boots—an odd combination, but they seemed to like it. Also, the heavy dresses that Susanna had given us were stained and filthy, and I did _not _want to wear my "performance" costume around the city.

"I've never been to an open market, either," Ari called out, peeking out from behind the screen. She, with her unfashionably cropped hair, was interested in buying one of the headscarves that the witches wore.

"Really?" Kailyn asked, looking at each of us as if we'd announced that we had once both once been frogs living in a pond. She appeared grateful for the distraction, and got to her feet. Santiago had not even been there, she had told me. I didn't ask where Marc was.

"Then you know where to find it?" Ari emerged from behind the screen, wrapped in a soft-looking towel. I ran my hand through my hair absentmindedly, and pulled it away in disgust. My hair felt as though I'd rubbed butter into it—I, too, was in dire need of a bath. The last one I'd taken had been in the river with a solitary bar of homemade soap—I missed the soaps and fragrant oils from my stash back at the castle. "_Spoiled and vain_," I muttered, giving myself a pinch on the wrist.

"Of course. It's not like it's hard," Kailyn sighed, her voice with a slight edge to it, as she got to her feet. "You can probably use the one in Tristan's room," she told me, motioning to the bathtub. "I don't want to be rude, Ariana, but that seems as if it would be simpler than just dumping the water out, cleaning out the tub itself—"

"No, no, I don't mind at all," Ariana shook her head, dragging a comb through her cropped black hair. I looked at Kailyn, who pointed towards the door. She, apparently, had no intention of moving. And so, quickly, I made the trip one door over to Maxwell, Marc and Tristan's room, where only Marc sat on the bed, idly playing with a thin gold chain he was wearing around his neck. I hadn't seen it before.

"Hello," I said after a brief pause, and he looked up. His face was pallid, and instantly, reflexively, he tucked the chain back inside his shirt. "Um," I said, my voice loud and flat in the otherwise-silent room, "Kailyn said that I could use your bathtub?" There was a pause, as if Marc could barely comprehend what I was saying, and then he shook his head as if he were clearing it.

"Of course you can," he said gruffly, standing up and making an effort to smile as he moved towards the door. There was a pump for the bathtub, for which I was grateful. Tristan had mentioned having to haul water for baths back home, and I had shuddered at the horror. I was used to having servants fill a tub for me, though I was starting to realize the unpleasantness of the task and regretted forcing them to do it at least twice a week. Regardless, I was glad that Marc and Kailyn had had the presence of mind to get rooms with bathtubs; I, at least, desperately needed it.

"Thank you!" I squealed, overwhelmed with gratitude for my tall friend. And his bathtub. "Your necklace," I blurted as he turned, "was that a—gift from your mother?" Marc merely looked at me, eyes blank, and just as I was beginning to feel incredibly stupid, he shook his head and offered nothing more on the matter. I nodded absently as he left, already absorbed in imagining the feel of soap against my filthy skin; as soon as Marc had closed the door, I locked it behind him. After all, I had a whole hour to myself, to bathe and do whatever else needed to be done. I was not going to spend it feeling awkward because Maxwell or, heaven forbid, Tristan, walked in on me, even if I was behind the screen.

The bath felt absolutely wonderful. Of course, I did have to spend time pumping water into the tub, and it was cold, but those were small prices to pay for being clean. The bar of soap, while it was plain, smelled faintly of lemon, and I used it to clean my hair as well. Sitting in the bathtub, I soaked away three weeks of dirt and slime and angst and pain; I felt as if the transformation I'd undergone, once only inside me, was beginning to manifest in my physical characteristics. For one thing, I was thinner; for another, my skin was darker, and I had a few freckles sprinkled across the bridge of my nose. That was a definite downside, but I didn't mind too much. Some men believed that freckles were sweet; they suggested innocence, and at fifteen years old, that was definitely what I wanted my appearance to suggest.

I _did _have to step back into Susanna's daughter's dress, which was dirty and stained from the frequent travel, but that was better than Helen's storyteller (i.e., whore) costume. I dressed hurriedly, shoving my boots on, and returned to my room. Kailyn still sat in silence, and I furrowed my brow, confused by her subdued manner. I supposed that her visit with Santiago had not gone well, and wondered dramatically if maybe their engagement was off—or, a more likely alternative, maybe Marc had confessed his feelings to her and she had rejected him. Considering _his _strangeness earlier, this would make sense. I did not ask her. If she wanted to tell me, she would talk to me; if she didn't, then she wouldn't. And so, Ariana and I chatted about various, trivial things, such as Tristan, our parents, Tristan, trade embargoes with Gurtak, Tristan, the weather, and, of course, Tristan.

Finally, after shaking our hair out (fine, _I_ had to shake _my_ hair out), we were ready to go. We invited the others, but Spencer had to practice fencing, Tristan's competition was starting, and Helen had already gone to a tavern. Apparently she thought that ingesting large amounts of liquor before a performance was good luck. An overenthusiastic Maxwell agreed, plus Alyson. We were on our way out of the inn when we met Marc, who was already carrying a basket filled with clothing in subdued, casual colors. Upon seeing us, he stopped, and I took note of the dark circles underneath his eyes. I hadn't noticed them before. Next to me, Kailyn tensed, and suddenly, jerkily, looked down.

"Going shopping?" Marc asked, and we nodded, Ariana asking if he wouldn't mind coming with us. "I mean, that is—" he stumbled over the words, and Kailyn turned to me. She kept her eyes downcast as her cheeks darkened, and placed a hand to her forehead.

"I have a—a headache. I think I'll just stay… yes, I'll stay here." _She is a terrible liar_, I mused, perplexed. In any case, she turned abruptly and went back inside, slamming the door behind her. After a very uncomfortable pause in which we looked at Marc and he looked at the floor, Ariana began to walk towards the market, and we all followed suit.

Settled on both sides of the river and connected by a gilded bridge, in the very heart of the city, the bazaar was filled with people. Women and men lugging enormous baskets filled with food and cloth marched around, each one looking as if they knew exactly what they were doing. I admired them; they navigated the busy crowds with ease as children dashed around the stalls, and carts drove around madly. On the other hand, confused warlocks stumbled about, each one totally lost. Thankfully, we had Maxwell and Marc as our guides, so we were safe even through the overwhelming confusion. Owners of the stalls that lined the streets called out their wares, and we were anxious to buy.

I found my tunic within five minutes. I'd always been glad that my father didn't care so much about clothes—I didn't mind being fitted for, say, a new ball gown, but I hated to stand through fittings for everyday clothes. It was boring and I really hated all of the _measuring_. I wasn't exactly the thinnest girl back home, and girls like Bridgette thought they were more marriageable, I suppose, than I was, just because _they_ could slip through the dungeon bars without getting stuck. (And that is an unpleasant anecdote that will not be included in this narrative, nor any other. Ever.)

"This is so interesting," I exclaimed as I tried on an oversized sunhat, giggling in delight as it shrank to fit me. I liked this system of just simple, one-size-fits-all-so-just-buy-it shopping. The tunic I found, anyway, was pale green, the hem and waistline embroidered with leaves and flowers in darker greens and yellows. The hose was pale brown, and I happily forked over the coins necessary to the man running the table.

"It is, isn't it?" Alyson called, holding out a small harp she'd found at a table nearby. As the daughter of a shrewd merchant, Alyson knew how to haggle for prices with the shopkeepers.

I heard silvery laughter and turned around; Ariana was talking and laughing with Maxwell. Tall and skinny, he couldn't be more than fifteen, though he seemed infinitely younger than me, and was clearly elated at the attention. My mouth quirked up in a half-smile and I felt bitterness rise as she hit him playfully on the arm. Poor Maxwell. He didn't need to have someone else playing with his heart, even if Ari and Kailyn each didn't recognize what they were doing; although, of course, I knew that Kailyn had two (three, if one counted her fiancé, and I didn't, as she didn't love him) people vying for her attentions. Ariana had always been flirtatious, but now that she had Tristan… but what did that mean? I wondered, fingering a green scarf. She and Tristan were together, but not married or engaged; was there even a word for that? Lovers, but that term, taken out of context, could be iffy. Courting, maybe; though not in the style I was used to back home. At this thought, I nodded absently, handing over the necessary coins to the stall's owner. Courting back home meant that his parents talked to your parents and then he brought you jewelry or something. Then you were engaged. But then, what did that make Ben and me? We'd been together in a similar way. But thinking of him made my chest compress and my stomach knot, and so I quickly turned my mind over to other things, like where-are-my-friends and I-want-to-sit-down.

I scanned the crowd briefly, picking out my companions for future reference before walking over the river, my purchases clutched in my hands. A group of little boys, each one maybe seven or eight years old, was holding races in the river with little toy boats made out of hollowed branches, sticks, and rags. I love ordinary children (as opposed to the courtiers' little horrors); they always brighten up my day with their cheerful, happy-go-lucky attitudes. I watched them for a while, enjoying the sun on my face and the children's delight. My favorite was the little boy with a red cap and darker skin than the others, and I cheered with him as his boat crossed under the bridge and to the other side. He came back towards me, his two-front-toothless smile stretching so that it nearly covered his face, with the triumphant sailboat gripped in his hands.

"What's your name?" I asked him as his friends raced to retrieve their own little boats.

"Thamuel," he lisped cheerfully, spraying me with every word and hugging the boat to his chest. "My daddy'th a thilverthmith here. I'm hith apprentith."

"Thamuel—I mean, Samuel the silversmith, huh? That's so exciting! I'm Marielle, and I'm here with my friends. Do you and your friends race here often?" I took in the clear, beautiful day, feeling sure that, at least here, there was never a cloud in the sky.

"Yep! Almotht every day. But Mam thayth that we might not be allowed to anymore, not for a little while." Samuel's eyes darted to where his friends stood, waiting for him. He wanted to go back, and I knew I shouldn't keep him. I looked back to where my friends, save for Ariana, had gathered, each looking at their purchases. I had to get back to them, too. Still…

"Really? Why not?" I questioned, against my better judgment. This city appeared to be safe for children, especially out in the open marketplace; the guards that the city's lords employed made sure of that. Maybe he just had overprotective parents or something.

" 'Cauthe of the printheth." Samuel rolled his eyes, as if I was being stupid, and then suddenly looked a little sad.

"The… princess? I knew she ran away," I said, perplexed and suddenly frightened by his tone.

"She died," Samuel stated with a shrug as I paled, realizing the significance of the black pennants and my vision. _I am an idiot_. "Mam thayth the newth came here thith morning. They found some of her dreth with blood on it," he pointed towards the direction we had come. "Tho now they think that the king and queen aren't gonna be king and queen anymore."

"If she's… _dead_… and the king and queen… Who is going to be the king, Samuel? Do you know?" I asked, hardly daring to breathe while my brain screamed, _my dress, that was mine, it's me who's supposed to be dead_. I remembered tearing off her dressing gown and the hem of my dress with my bloody hands and leaving it, crumpled and stained on the ground. There was the vision I'd seen, of Braxton picking up the bloodstained rags; that had to have been the dressing gown. That had been… that must have been early this morning. He had to have sent Lord Griffyn to the city—it was far away, but, as of course I knew, anything is possible with the right magical tools, and Lord Griffyn knew what he was doing. Still, something Ari had told me, once, was niggling at my brain… that bald man, what was his name…

"One of the king'th friendth." King's friends. King's Council.

And I knew. Sir Luis.

**And thus, we cue the Imperial March (or whatever it's called) from Star Wars. I feel like this chapter really pulled the last few together and got the plot to flow a little better. Thanks so much for taking the time to read this! I alternately really liked this chapter, as it hints at the emergence of my favorite couple—guess who—and disliked the chapter, as it has not been rewritten, really, from when I wrote it about a year ago. What did you think? Please let me know!**


	19. Chapter Nineteen

**Hey, all! Thanks so much for your patience with me. I have been on a mission trip, visiting family, you know all the excuses. I'm sorry I haven't updated for a while, but I decided at the last minute that the chapter I was going to post did not fit the flow of the story, and so I had to essentially rewrite it. I hope you enjoy this! Thanks to P.E.E.V.S.Y., Anonymous, and Frogster for reviewing! It made my day each time I saw a new review. Read on!**

**Chapter Nineteen**

**Ariana**

Iwas looking at a necklace with an interesting copper pendant and one with a fine gold chain looped with a silver one, trying to decide which I liked best, when someone grabbed my shoulder from behind. I started, but relaxed as I turned. "Marielle! What do you think?" I asked her, holding out the necklace. "I know that it's sort of expensive, but—"

"Princess," my lady-in-waiting hissed sharply, "I need to speak to you. Right now."

"What is it?" I asked, placing the necklace back on the table as fear gripped my heart. The urgency in Marielle's tone was uncharacteristic, and something about the way she spoke seemed to make the bright day grow dark. "What's the matter?" Ignoring my question, she took my wrist and pulled me towards the bridge, where there were less people, and onto a low, stone bench. "Marielle, what's _wrong_?"

"Ariana, the kingdom… everyone thinks you're dead. Your parents may be abdicating, and Sir Luis is to be king in your father's place if they do. If we're going to get to the Bright Isles, we need to do so now. It makes sense now—my visions from the past few days, I mean. Everyone's been crying, your father said—he said that—" I stopped paying attention to her, my breathing shallow as the world dimmed.

I sat down, hard, on the low wall that separated street from river, my head spinning as my vision darkened around the edges. The sights and sounds of the world around me dimmed as I processed what this meant. This had all been in vain, anyhow—King Braxton was going to rule Marquia, and my escaping had done nothing but saved my own life. Had I stayed home, and married him, I would have gained time, time to think and to act, but now, I had done nothing but speed up the process of his plan. I had as good as sold my country, my people! And my parents. Marielle had only said that they _may_ be abdicating, but I was sure that, if my father remained noncompliant with his plans, Braxton would force them to. And once he didn't need them anymore…

"Well, one good thing came of this," I said grimly, having suddenly realized something. "Braxton thinks I'm dead. We have nothing to be frightened of; he only met you once, and I'm sure that he assumes you're dead as well. We should be able to travel easily."

"And the mourning period for you will last at least a month," Marielle added, nodding thoughtfully. If they abdicated now, I knew that Sir Luis couldn't take power until the mourning period was over. Of course, it was different during a war, for example, but this was peacetime. It was the law, and would be upheld by the military—the majority of which, I knew, was still loyal to my father. "So you do have some time, Ari. He can't act until then, can he?"

"He probably could, if he wanted to, but it's doubtful. For now, at least, he needs to gain the people's trust. I think that we should carry out the performances until the competition is over."

"Princess, that's in a week's time," Marielle objected, nervously tugging at a lock of her still-damp hair. "We don't have time, the trip to the Bright Isles will take at least three weeks, maybe more. We can't afford to wait. If we do, it'll seem suspicious… like we planned this to strengthen the alliance."

"I don't want to leave without Tristan," I insisted, crossing my arms. "We need him, and he needs to finish the competition so that he can complete his apprenticeship." This was stupid, I knew, distantly, but I was still alive. And I had every right to the throne. I knew of the division within the Council; we had no way of knowing whether or not Sir Luis would be king, and I planned to make it known that I was alive long before then. Besides, I had another way of getting to the Bright Isles. Marielle may have forgotten the mirror we had used to get into the forest in the first place, but I had not. And dangerous though it was—Benjamin, the mage's son, had spoken of people getting sliced in half if the spell wasn't uttered correctly—it could work well, and would.

"And you love Tristan," Marielle snapped, turning away from me to face the river, almost forgetting the people that streamed past and bumping into a woman behind her. Marielle ignored her, her voice coming snappish and sarcastic. "Don't forget that part."

"I do love him," I stated, my temper flaring. "Is that a problem?"

"No, nothing," she answered, sinking onto the low wall and looking at her hands. Suddenly, abruptly, as if she were attempting to rid herself of a troublesome thought, Marielle leapt to her feet. "Come," she said over her shoulder, pointing to the others, "they're waiting for us. You heard what Vallombrosa said. We shouldn't be anywhere alone."

"Helen can't do the horse show, it's too crowded in the streets, but Kailyn and Marc are already out there," Alyson called through the door—it was the sixth night. Through the curtains on my window, I could see that the sun was sinking low in the sky. Time for us to perform.

"I'm coming," I shouted in response, hurrying across the room to extinguish the lamp. I stopped in front of the small mirror hanging on the back of the door to check my reflection; Alyson had trimmed my uneven hair so that it hung neatly to my shoulders, and I loved how light it felt, even if I had to wear a scarf over it when I went out in public to avoid the stares. I'd been mistaken for a witch exactly twelve times in the days that had passed. Giving my head a shake, I ran a comb through the black locks, tossed my gold scarf over them, and I was ready to go.

I exited the inn with Alyson, her carrying her lute and me clutching the fan I needed for the old legend that Tristan, Alyson, Marc and I were going to reenact. The story, about our first kings as youths, told of a young maiden (me) caught and held captive by an evil witch (Marielle, who played the part with surprising enthusiasm). The witch's motive is only to tear apart the young kingdom, and she holds a contest between two princes, Evan and Harry (Tristan and Marc, respectively). The contest consists of physical and mental challenges, as well as a challenge of the heart, and the reward for the winner is both the maiden's freedom as well as her hand. In the end, through cooperation, Evan and Harry both triumph, and the maiden turns out to be a faerie that kills the witch and presents the princes with beautiful wives (Alyson and Kailyn) to marry. And then they all get married and have lots of children and the kingdom lives happily ever after and everything is wonderful forever and ever… you get the picture. We were performing in the open square where the bazaar had been earlier, where people were already gathered with friends at the end of the day. We had developed something of a reputation by this point, which was alternately a good thing and a bad thing; if people had already seen us, even if they liked us, they were less likely to offer us money.

"Good evening, fellow citizens," Alyson called as Daniel played the last few notes on his flute. "Tonight, we present you with one of your celebrated tales of old: the tale of your first kings, brothers, and how they discovered that, while competent apart, together, they were unstoppable. Thank you." It was mostly parents sitting with children that had stopped to watch—a few warlocks passed, tired from the competition, but I didn't mind. Children were my preferred audience, as they always looked happy to see performances of any kind and didn't whine about the quality of the costumes or props.

We began the play, and I kept stealing glances at Tristan out of the corner of my eye. I was sure that everyone, even the children, could tell that the maiden favored Prince Evan over Prince Harry, and from the look on Helen's face, she didn't like it. I had to constantly remind myself to stay in character, but I'd missed him. I wanted to know how the competition had gone. In any case, I surprised myself by dealing with the stage kiss between Tristan and Alyson well enough; it didn't bother me, much to my surprise. I'd avoided watching it at rehearsal, but it was obvious that there was no chemistry between the two. With any luck, I would play Tristan's love interest in the next play—but there wasn't going to be a next play, I reminded myself with a jolt. We were leaving, though Helen was not going to know until we were gone. It was strange to think that soon, this adventure would be over, and almost painful. I would miss Alyson and Daniel, Kailyn and Marc, even Maxwell and Spencer. Helen I could do without, but still. I had made friends with the troupe as an equal, and I would really regret leaving that behind.

For now, however, I concentrated on making sure the end of the play went as it was supposed to—stage kisses and all. The ending was only awkward, I realized suddenly, because Marc and Kailyn did notkiss at all, only clasped hands, and that only barely. As the audience applauded politely, I cast the two a puzzled glance. They had both done so well at rehearsal before we'd gotten to the city, but now that we actually were performing—_Helen is going to murder them_, I shuddered as the actors took their bows.

Overall, however, the play went over quite well, and even the parents enjoyed it. After the play, Spencer and I showed off with a meticulously rehearsed swordfight, and Alyson and Maxwell sang a duet. By this time, the crowd had grown to include various youths and girls from the shops around us; I could even see a nobleman or two near the back, enjoying the music on his way back to the side of the city set aside for nobility. Finally, as Daniel and Alyson's music faded up and into the stars, Marielle got to her feet, and went to stand in the center of the square. It was the final part of the evening: time for the storyteller to make an appearance. I sat down on the ground next to Tristan and leaned against him, waiting and wondering which tale she was going to tell tonight. She had promised it would be new and original, as the other stories she'd told had only been glorified versions of ones that she'd read.

"You are all familiar," she began in a loud voice, her accent and diction quite different from her usual sound, "of the tale of the mer-child who desired to become what she was not. However, long before the time of the mermaid, there was a young priestess." Marielle stopped for a moment; I saw her eyes sweep the crowd, possibly for dramatic effect, but… no; I shook my head as she began again, relaxing against Tristan's shoulder. Dramatic effect.

The story, surprisingly dark, told of a young priestess and her closest friend, a merchant's daughter. The merchant's daughter fell in love with one of the mer-folk, whose people had been known to drown sailors and fishermen in the village. The priestess loved her friend truly and deeply, and so she married her to the merman. However, her own heart broke as she did so, for she wished to fall in love as the merchant's daughter had, and feared she never would. As the jealousy festered in her heart, she mourned the loss of the truest friend she had ever known and kept silent about the bad feelings she had about the marriage. Not a year later, however, the merchant's daughter was killed in a terrible storm—her body was found on the rocks, and she had obviously been too close to shore. Still, the priestess blamed her husband's people, and a bitter hatred took root in her heart. Combined with the jealousy, the good soul of the priestess lost the battle with evil, and she turned to the dark arts in an effort to rid the village of the mer-folk. Frightened for their lives, the villages chased her from her home, and the priestess lived out her days in bitter jealousy and hatred, undergoing transformation after transformation until there was nothing human about her any longer. She had become, well and truly, an evil witch—the one known and reviled as the sea-witch. It was barely ten years later when a young mermaid came to her… desperate to become human.

Marielle stood and turned again as she finished, smiling briefly as the crowd applauded. (Though, it must be admitted, the younger children looked rather confused and the adults looked disturbed.) I shivered, pressing harder into Tristan's shoulder. It had been a sad story, which was odd; Marielle was usually the one who bobbed along happily with whatever happened—she had even, for the most part, taken the nightmare that had swept through our lives very well. What, I wondered as I stood, watching her smiling-but-guarded face, did she keep to herself?

"So what was the moral of the story?" I asked Marielle as she readied for bed later that night. I could tell that the beginning, at least, had been autobiographical, but I hoped that the ending wasn't what she imagined her life would become.

"_Gnugh_," she grunted, throwing herself on her pillow, facedown. "Wasn't it obvious? Don't be jealous and bitter and hating or you will die."

"But—she didn't die," I felt compelled to point out.

"Exactly," Marielle popped up, her face grave and her tone nonchalant. "The sea-witch suffered a fate worse than death, with no friends and nothing to keep her alive but her hatred while inside her jealousy and fury ate her alive as maggots devour corpses." I blanched.

"You tell sad stories," I complained teasingly after a rather disturbed pause, running the comb through my hair.

"The world is a sad place to be in," Marielle said quickly in response to my earlier question, sitting up and leaning against the wall. "People are always either dying or being betrayed or getting hurt or hunted down. Like we are. Why should the stories be any different?"

"I thought the point of a good story was to give you an escape. To make you forget what's going on in your own life."

"That's true, but misery loves company. When I'm unhappy, or… or upset, I like to read things about people who have it much more badly than I do."

"Are you unhappy or upset right now?" I asked carefully, watching her face as I did so. Her expressions danced quickly across her face, but I thought I had caught them—from shocked to guarded to very much a little-ball-of-sunshine brand of happiness, and for the first time, I realized that said happiness was forced.

"Now, why would you ask that?" she asked, giving a little laugh before starting to spit out words so quickly it took a moment to figure out what she was saying. "I just figured that the magicians from the competition would have had a rough day. There can only be one winner per event, you know, and there's only, what, five? No, maybe six… well, anyway, I just felt sorry for them and thought that the children deserved a little moral about jealousy. It's like a disease that eats you alive, you know. Now, I am exhausted, so… good night, Princess. Oh—can I assist you in any way?" Marielle added quickly, standing up. I shook my head and smiled a little, thoughtful. "All right, then," Marielle shrugged, clambering back into her bed.

"Good night," I called, preparing to leave. I needed to find Tristan before I went to sleep; I wanted to find out how the third—and final—day of competition had gone. While I was sure he hadn't _won_, I had thought he would do fairly well.

"Good night." The muffled answer came from inside her nest of blankets. "Ari, wait—" Marielle reemerged briefly. "I thought I saw Ben in the crowd," she said so quickly the words ran together. "You know, from your aunt's manor? But I wasn't sure…"

"Yes, but… I didn't see him, Marielle. I'm sorry," I added quickly as her hopeful expression dropped into disappointment.

"Oh," she wilted, leaning back against the pillows. "It would have been nice to have a—a friend in the city," she said thoughtfully.

"Yes, it would have been." I hesitated at the door, sensing her disappointment. She and Ben had spent quite a bit of time together back at Aunt Ivy's, but never exactly how she felt about him. Then again, with all the confusion going on, I hadn't really had time to ask… obvious, I remembered, as it had been. I chose not to (selfishly, I know) at that moment, and smiled at her once. "Good night, Marielle."

As it turned out, I did not have to go far. I found Tristan out in the main hallway, absentmindedly spinning a letter between his palms and talking with Kailyn. "How are you?" I asked her, moving towards her with concern. In her last performance, the closing to the show, Marc had actually—and accidentally—dropped her during the last lift. It had been a terrible moment; she scrambled for a better grip, but before he could catch her again, she hit the ground. She hadn't broken anything, but she had rolled one ankle and had to limp (she refused to be carried) back to the inn. It had caused quite a commotion, though fortunately most people had left by that point, ready to get home before they broke the heavily-enforced citywide curfew. Needless to say, Kailyn and Marc hadn't exactly been at their best that night, and Helen was both displeased and unsympathetic. I'd heard her shouting something about not allowing personal issues to interfere with one's performance, and felt sorry instantly for both Kailyn and Marc, who had, of late, been making avoiding each other a contest. As far as I could tell, save for the performances, they were both winning. Still, I was personally impressed with the sheer number of times they had each gotten Helen to believe that they were missing our collective rehearsal for their own, private practice when in reality—and obviously—they were either back at the inn or, if the other one was there, out. What "out" entailed, I had no idea.

"I am fine," Kailyn told me now, stretching her arms and flashing a reassuring smile. "It was nothing. Tristan mended my ankle for me."

"That was kind," I told him, relaxing into a wide smile. Tristan grinned back, though his mind was clearly elsewhere. "How was the competition? I feel like I've barely seen you all day."

"Not bad," Tristan replied automatically, coming out of his reverie and looking straight at me as Kailyn said a quick good night before ducking into our room. I stepped towards him, watching the letter in his hands. "Actually," he told me, his grin growing wider as he reached to pull something from underneath the collar of his shirt, "it was better than 'not bad.'" What he wore around his neck, I realized, was a small bronze medal. Small, yes, bronze, yes, but it was a medal all the same, and I threw my arms around him.

"Congratulations! What's it for?"

"Potions, actually. I never thought I was that good, but there weren't many healers at the competition this week, and that's something we do all the time. I was fortunate." Still pleased, I leaned in to kiss him, but Tristan looked away. "A letter came from home today," he interrupted, stepping back. I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed, crossing my arms and shifting my weight to one side. Tristan ignored me. "Irene wrote."

"What did she say?" I asked halfheartedly, already adjusting my scarf out of boredom.

"Evelyn is married." That was not the answer I had expected, and I looked up in surprise. Instantly, the image of Tristan's sister, closest in age at seventeen, flashed into my head: a casual smirk that hid white teeth, a dress considered low-cut even by a princess, and pale red hair she wore tumbling down her back. This new, imaginary picture of her, attired in wedding gown, was slightly harder to process. She hadn't been betrothed, not that I could remember—that had been the eldest. Cassandra? No, no, she was the next eldest. The eldest was Tatiana. Still, this was strange.

"What?" I asked, looking straight at Tristan. He looked distracted, almost distressed, and I had to remind myself that this was practically his sister, and she had gotten married without him. Back in Riverside, life was going on despite Tristan's absence, and that had to hurt. I inhaled sharply, wondering, not for the first time, how my life would change when I returned. If I returned. I was assuming that I wasn't killed or taken prisoner or some other horrible thing in the time to get to the Bright Isles. Which brought up another little snag. I had been thinking about our approaching the governor—obviously, I could not just waltz into the palace and demand to see their leader. Still, I could not really think of a better way. At least, I consoled myself, I had the documentation to prove that I was who I said I was, as well as the ring with my seal. Marielle could vouch for me, and so could Ben; it would have been much easier if we had an ambassador to the Bright Isles who had visited the capital before, but Irenta controlled the islands with an ever-tightening fist. I shook my head, trying to come back to the much-smaller, though not unimportant, issue at hand.

"I know," Tristan ran a hand through his hair, heaving a sigh. "To the youngest Baker, Arthur. He—we were in school together. He's sixteen. They just—eloped, I suppose. Irene is pretty sure it wasn't based on love." I winced. I am no prophetess, but I can read between the lines when the situation calls for it.

"Poor Evelyn," I said softly, tugging the sleeve of my borrowed dress back over my wrist. Maybe it had once been hers.

Tristan had no such sympathy. "From what I can gather, she deserved it," he snorted, leaning back against the wall. I could tell that there was more, and so I waited for him to continue. "I was supposed to marry her, you know," Tristan confessed, and for a moment my heart stopped beating. "Not anymore, of course," he said hurriedly, attempting to salvage the statement. "Salus and Susanna called off the 'engagement' when I turned thirteen. Said that I was like their son, and that incest was illegal. I can't say I disagreed with them. Still… I think that was when Evelyn changed. When she started being really, well, wild. And so, now—"

"Do you think she's—with child?" I had to ask. It was common enough.

"Irene does, or, at least, she implied that she does. Evelyn whored herself around enough for that to be true." Tristan stared at the wall, his expression unrepentant. I could tell that there was more he had to say, and so I waited for a moment. "Ari, I know it hasn't been that long since we—got together, but I wanted to tell you something."

"Yes?" I said expectantly when he didn't speak. Tristan turned suddenly, grasping my wrist as though afraid I would run away without allowing him to finish. He needn't have worried; his eyes kept me rooted to the spot. Vaguely, I knew that I was standing in the middle of a public corridor, with Maxwell passing by on one side and Helen on the other, stone underfoot and a blazing torch not a foot away from me. Somehow, though, Tristan was all that mattered.

"I want to marry you." His customary indifference, eloquence, was gone, and now he was nervous, wetting his lips and fidgeting. I concentrated on breathing. "And—I don't know how that's going to happen, but it will, if you want it to—I had hoped that maybe you wanted to marry me, and oh—and, oh yes, I am going with you to the islands, and—this isn't going the way I want it to," he laughed quickly, anxiously. "You're not saying anything. That's—fine. I mean, damn, you're crying. Oh, this is—"

"Of course I want to," I interrupted, laughing a little as tears came to my eyes. "I love you."

Needless to say, I got my kiss.

The next day—the last day—I spent the morning with Marielle and Maxwell, who had left Daniel and Alyson to deal with a screaming Bethanne. Spencer and Helen were off drinking themselves to death, and Kailyn and Marc were, as usual, off God-knows-where avoiding each other. Tristan had opted to stay back at the inn, asleep, while we sat out by the river, enjoying a few moments of idle chatter. For the first time since before meeting Braxton, I was really free. I knew that I did not look like myself—or, at least, the way a princess should look. My hair was chopped off, my skin was darker, and in my tunic and headscarf I'd been mistaken for a witch exactly twelve times during the week. It wasn't surprising that so many thought I was foreign; there were many strangers in the city, clearly not for the competition but for other purposes, and it was interesting to me—who had been raised in a home filled with tension between the various nationalities—that everyone got along so well. For now, we sat and pointed out strangers, wondering where they came from and trying to get Marielle to discover where they came from. She had spotted three Southern gypsies, one man from the Bright Isles, and several Irentian elves, who she guessed knew Kailyn's alleged fiancé, Santiago. It was a beautiful day, and I could not help relaxing in the sun, sliding up my sleeves to allow the sun to warm my arms.

We watched in silence as the two cloaked wizards proceeded to converse by the river, their language almost guttural and unlike anything I had ever heard. I turned, of course, to Marielle. "What is it they are speaking?" I asked in a low voice, and she hurriedly swallowed a piece of the bread she was munching on before answering.

"Well—they're from Gaul, I know that much. Johan was stationed near there just a few years ago," she added thickly through a mouthful of bread. In front of us, a group of barefooted children stumbled by, each of them shouting at each other and laughing. They looked strangely out of place in the subdued city, where they were all mourning the death of the princess. It was a strange thought, one that I could not entirely brush off, no matter how much I wanted to. It kept me from being entirely focused on the conversation, and so I had to concentrate to hear Marielle saying, "I can say two phrases in their language."

"What are they?" Maxwell jumped in, looking at Marielle eagerly. Ever since the night in the forest during which she babbled in exactly three different tongues, he had become obsessed with knowing exactly how many she knew.

"Ah, well, they're not entirely—" I knew, somehow, that the next word was going to be "appropriate" even before it left her mouth, and I grinned.

"More 'naughty words' for Maxwell?" I giggled, and Marielle snorted before crossing her arms and laughing, head thrown back. She had spent the last few weeks united with Alyson in an attempt to break Maxwell of his little swearing habit, strongly suggesting (often with the back of her hand) that he think about his word choice each time she caught him. Never mind the fact that Spencer swore at least twice as often as Maxwell did; her insistence that Maxwell speak properly was maybe because he had such an innocent face, cheeks plump like a little boy's. His brown hair, which brushed his shoulders, always reminded me of the pageboy who helped with the fittings back home. He was always very particular about his hair, too—though I suspected it was for a different reason than Maxwell's own, which happened to be that he was in love with Kailyn and wanted to impress her. Poor boy.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Tristan, heading out of the inn and straight for us, hands in his pockets. I waved, my heart quickening with each step he took. Marriage. He wanted to marry me. Impossible, something in the back of my mind whispered, that is impossible. But, for now, I didn't care. Once we had made it to the Bright Isles, then I could think about marriage.

"No, nothing like that," Marielle was saying, defending her pieces of culture. "Here, one's a simple question, 'do you want to be my friend?'" She thought for a moment, and, balancing on the edge of the low wall, took Maxwell's hand and asked him innocently, conversationally, "_Voulez vous couchez avec moi, ce soir?_"

Instantly, as if she had just announced she was handing out free coins to any who wanted them, the two men's heads snapped in our direction, brows furrowed. Marielle, who hadn't realized she was being so loud, immediately flushed. It was when they continued to stare, one of them standing up and reaching into a pocket, that her eyes widened, and she jerked her hand away from Maxwell quickly. He began to pout, but she took no notice, wiping the appendage off on her tunic as if to rid herself of an unpleasant substance. "Oh, dear goodness," she muttered, shuddering.

"What is it?" I wanted to know, bewildered, threading my arm through Tristan's as he joined us.

"Oh, well, um," she gabbled, "let's just say that I know _two _phrases in that language, I mixed up their meanings, interpret that statement as you will," Marielle said to me before turning to Tristan. "If those men come by, I'm your insane sister and not responsible for my words. Oh, and you love me and would defend me—and my honor, that's important—with your life. And, ah—" she pointed at me "—and hers." I turned to look at her while Tristan snickered, instantly sizing up the situation and understanding the possible implications behind it.

"Whore," he called her, and she groaned before turning back to her seat and muttering something that sounded suspiciously like "you might be right."

"What was that? My apologies, but I didn't hear you." I commented, blinking innocently at her. Marielle didn't skip a beat.

"I said, what a nice night." It was midmorning, though I chose not to point this out—I had other concerns. There was a figure watching several paces away, with dark hair and dressed simply, though I could not make out his face. It seemed strange, however, that he was interested in our little group, and so, to appear as if I hadn't noticed him, I turned back to Marielle and Tristan, who by this point were engaged in a strange sort of insult war that involved her throwing every creative name (some in Elfin, Duendese, or Libonessenian) that she had at him, and him responding with a simple, and resounding, "whore." If I thought it hurt her feelings, I probably would have stopped him; as it was, I knew Marielle took it lightly, as she was, clearly, about the farthest thing from the sort of person he accused her of being. She couldn't stand to be touched even accidentally, and my "sneak attack" hugs were, quite literally, her worst nightmare.

"I don't understand," Maxwell whined as Tristan snickered, overcome with laughter. I glanced over at the stranger again, and felt a chill run down my spine. There was familiarity to his stance; what if he knew who I was? But he couldn't. I mean, I was dead. Right? "What did she _say_?"

"From what I can gather," Tristan began slowly, as Marielle turned a furious pink and the stranger took a step forward, "she asked you to—"

"No, Tristan, _don't_!" Marielle's voice rose in volume and desperation with each word, and across the square, the mysterious stranger appeared to start. I swallowed—he knew her voice. He knew her. If he knew her, then he knew me, and if he knew me, then he knew that I was supposed to be the princess. Princesses did not just leave of their own free will. And if my leaving Aunt Ivy's manor hadn't been of my own will, it had been someone else's. I looked at Tristan haltingly, slowly, and squeezed my hands into fists, my breathing quick and shallow as panic crawled up my throat. We had to leave. We had to leave, now. I had never realized that my being with Tristan, even as a traveling companion put him in more danger than just potentially being near King Braxton and Lord Griffyn… he could be seen as my kidnapper.

But before I could invent an excuse and get to my feet, the man had turned away, hands in his pockets, strolling back towards a tavern. An instant later, he was gone, and I could think logically, without the fear to cloud my judgment. It was possible that he had gone to look for reinforcements to take us away, to tell the captain of the city guard, to tell someone, anyone, that we were here—but it was unlikely. If he had recognized me and meant to harm me, he would have approached me himself; if he hadn't recognized me, then perhaps he was only curious. It was possible, I supposed, that Marielle was just loud.

"—to sleep with her," Tristan finished triumphantly, leaning back, hands gripping the sides of the wall. Maxwell's eyes grew wide, and I could only imagine what he was thinking. It was probably the first time any female had ever asked him that question.

"No, I don't want to, I wasn't really asking you, and—Maxwell, don't you _dare _look at me like that!" Marielle shrieked, her words running together so that they came out as one blur. She thumped Tristan on the shoulder in mock-anger, and he laughed easily, the sun shining behind him and turning his short hair gold. The scene was so simple and familiar that, for a moment, I forgot that I was a princess.

"_Mademoiselle_?" It was a nonsense word—another language, perhaps?—and I looked up. One of the cloaked men stood near us, almost leaning over Marielle, who looked straight up at him, frozen. "I couldn't help hearing that you were offering to—"

"Hello," Tristan interrupted with an unpleasant smile, getting to his feet. He glanced back at Marielle, who was fairly terrified, and his eyes softened.

"Yes?" the man snapped, and Tristan stepped between him and Marielle protectively. He was a solid inch taller than this stranger, which gave him an advantage.

"Well, _I_ wasn't offering to do anything, sir," he said clearly and loudly, and I prayed that he wasn't about to pick a fight. The last thing we needed was to attract the attention of the city authorities. "Because I know that you weren't talking to my sister." With a wave of his hand, Tristan seemingly pulled a knife from the air, and ran a finger over the blade with an air of the utmost causality. "Not like that."

"Of—of course," the man replied, forcing a smile as he eyed the silver blade. "My apologies, _monsieur_."

"I think he just insulted you," Maxwell stage-whispered to Tristan as the man walked back over to his companion. Tristan merely shrugged at sat back down, grinning at Marielle's awestruck expression.

"What?" he asked, shrugging and placing an arm around my shoulders. I leaned into him, smiling and trying to forget the figure I'd seen watching us, and the subsequent realization. As long as I could convince the court of the Bright Isles that Tristan was harmless, we were fine. And they would believe me. They had to.

"You're going to marry this boy, right?" Marielle asked me suddenly, trying to keep back a wide smile, and I laughed.

"That's the plan," I told her, tipping my head back and closing my eyes so that the sun warmed my face, focusing only on today, this moment. Everything was about to change; we would leave the protection and anonymity of the troupe the next day. We would be well on our way to the Bright Isles before anyone knew, courtesy of Benjamin's mirror. One question was simple, but it raised the stakes: did Braxton know I was alive? I didn't know, not for sure. All I could do now was wait for tomorrow and pray that no one knew the truth. The only problem was, we had told so many lies that the line between reality and fabrication was starting to blur. As much as I liked the other members of the troupe, it was only a matter of time before someone found out. And just a little longer before they acted on it. With any luck, we could keep up the charade for a few more hours.

But I had no luck.

**Well, that's all for this chapter! Bingo7, I'm so sorry, but part of the chapters that were cut involved the one from Tristan's POV. Which brings me to another point: I have a poll up on my profile page, asking from whose POV you would rather read a chapter. Please review, and then vote! And thanks so much for reading. Till next time! :-)**


	20. Chapter Twenty

**Hi, everyone! Thanks so much for reading; I'm really sorry this chapter took so long to get out. I've been busy, but then, we all have, and so I can only say that I'm sorry. **

**Lumiere Hikari: Gracias, chica. I like the general idea of French—I just can't pronounce it. I'm glad that you liked the chapter!**

**Anonymous: You're welcome for saying you're welcome! I'm so glad that you like the characters and the story. Thank you so much for your reviews!**

**Frogster: Haha, yes, poor Marielle doesn't really get a break, does she? And (I think I told you this in my review reply) yes, she is jealous. She's a bit of a diva—we have that in common. :) Thank you for all your reviews!**

**Misschosaku: Thanks for your review! It made my day. I'm happy you enjoyed the chapter!**

**So—yes! Read and review!**

**Chapter Twenty**

**-**_**From the Desk of Marielle**_**-**

_Dear Johan, I think I am in love with an Irentian mage. And I'm a witch. Hoping you don't burn me at the stake, your sister, Marielle. Insert four-letter expletive here._

_Aji Mother, Para whota quin tu planes mi zangin que elto witch? Neighnot ordo para mustic en tu al marona mi majic. Ent no pledo No, no, no. Definitely not._

_Dear Father I'll come back to this later._

_Once upon a time, there was a young prince who liked nothing more than to play with fire. He loved to play with the interestingly purple flames of the court, and Ari stop reading over my shoulder, it is impolite._

_Dearest Ben, I know that I love you but Kailyn and Tristan, go away._

_To Ben: I know that I can't go home now but I still think that I said go away._

_Whatever unfortunate boy I'm writing to: Turns out that I drink. A lot. And I'm widely considered a whore. So I don't think that's an appropriate thing for TRISTAN, DO NOT TOUCH MY DAMN QUILL AGAIN AND GET THE HELL OUT OF MY ROOM BEFORE I SMACK YOU!_

_Benjamin, I don't believe in love and I don't like you. I've decided to shave my head and become a nun. Maybe we can forget about each other. Sincerely, Marielle. Kailyn, if you don't stop laughing RIGHT NOW, I'll GUT YOU and feed your ENTRAILS to Helen's HORSE and THEN turn what's left of you into a FROG. And it's NOT swearing if you just write it down, so don't EVEN try to make anyone think that it is._

_No, Ariana, nothing is funny._

Dear Ben, I am a liar. Figured you ought to know.

That last evening, which we had off, began innocently enough. Helen called us all into the common room of the inn for her customary critique of our performance, which she referred to only as "notes." Apparently, my gypsy accent wasn't strong enough, I needed to scream a little more at Alyson in the beginning of that stupid Rosa and Anton play, and I wasn't allowed to tell any more stories with sad endings because the audience (who, according to Helen, loved sappiness more than a faerie-tale-obsessed little girl and were nearly twice as stupid) didn't exactly "get it." I knew that she was right, but her delivery—you _will _do this, I _order _you to do this—was so irritating that it made me want to hit her. Her manner was too similar to that of Jemima, the kitchen wench back home. Fortunately, this time, I was not alone in Helen's overly-particular criticisms. Ariana looked at Tristan too many times during the play the day before; Alyson had gone slightly flat on the last note of one of her songs; Daniel had entered a measure a beat too late; Spencer had nearly sliced Ari's hand off when he slipped on a smooth cobblestone; and the fourteen-year-old Maxwell's voice had cracked twice. Marc was gone, out on an errand for Helen, and so he was spared her irritation, but Kailyn, his partner, was not so lucky. And tonight Helen was feeling vindictive.

"Helen, please, tell me what I did wrong in my _performance_," Kailyn interrupted from her seat on the floor just in front of our leader, cutting off Helen's long list of complaints about her frequent absences from rehearsal. "I apologize for missing rehearsal last time, I've been apologizing all day, but today I had to take care of something and it was unavoidable—"

"Nothing is unavoidable!" Helen boomed, crossing her arms. One of the other patrons in the room looked over at us, brow furrowed, but she took no notice. I glanced at Ari and Tristan, checking furtively to see if they were paying attention to this argument, too. I hated feeling like I was eavesdropping, but I wasn't sure if I should get up and leave or stay. No one had moved, and so I stayed put. "Now, I know that you and Marc are having issues—" the room cringed; no one had wanted to say it aloud, obvious as it was. Helen didn't care, barreling on, "—but your little lovers' quarrel—"

"Oh, for God's sake, we're notlovers, we are _partners!_" Kailyn cried, jerking forward in her seat. She was pale now, her lower lip trembling as if she was about to cry, and as everyone in the room looked at her, she made a quick movement with her arm as if to shove back Helen's remarks. "You can't just—"

"It matters little to me whatyou are or what you do together on your own time," Helen cut her off ruthlessly, coldly, as if to counter Kailyn's emotion. "…so long as it doesn't directly affect your performance together. And it has. I do not have time for your petty little problems," Helen announced, her voice haughty and, from what I could already tell, dangerous. Kailyn visibly bristled, ears slowly but surely turning emerald. As she'd explained to me, it was an elfin reflex, occurring during times of stress or anger. "Both of you need to _get it together_."

"Or you'll do what?" she demanded as she got to her feet, each word sharp and staccato and _loud_, filling the now-silent room. Even the strangers, peering over at our group from the main doorway of the inn, appeared to understand that whatever was going on did not typically occur. My head snapped up to look at Helen, who was clearly shocked. Her mouth hung open, her eyebrows shot skyward—as if Kailyn had just uttered some unspeakable oath or, worse, had dared to voice an opinion. "_What?_" Kailyn repeated, laughing darkly. "You'll kick me out of the troupe? Is that it?"

"Don't talk back to me," Helen replied, her voice so cold it froze the atmosphere. Kailyn, all-but blazing with fury, snorted, waving a hand in the air as she nodded sarcastically. Never had I seen her so angry, her eyes flashing, her Irentian accent growing stronger. And never had I seen anyone stand up to Helen. Not Maxwell, who called her horrible names behind her back; not Spencer, who, even as a friend, called her little better to her face; not even Alyson, who took care of every member of the troupe and was quick to bandage the hurt feelings our dear leader caused. Similar to wearing skirts that stopped before your ankles or mixing grape jelly and mashed potatoes, standing up to Helen simply was one of those things that were Not Done. To be honest, for a moment I was certain that Kailyn had lost her mind.

"_You,_" she said, her voice full of venom as she pointed to Helen, "are not my mother. You will _never_ be able to tell me what to do. I don't have to listen to you—do you know that? Do you all know that?" she called mockingly, turning to the room at large. "I don't have to listen to anyone! And do you know what, Helen? My performance has _not _suffered these last few days because of any reason other than that, sometimes, I miss a step. Forgive me, I beg you, for simple, occasional, error! No, you just don't have control over me, and you can't stand that. So," she took a step towards the speechless horsewoman, trying to hide the way her hands shook by placing them on her hips, "you could kick me out. I've been kicked out before. It will probably happen again. But I'll be damned if I let _you_ do that to me now." And so, as Helen and the rest of the room watched, openmouthed, Kailyn pulled the costume scarf she was wearing over her own from her shoulders, dropped it at Helen's feet, and fairly shouted, defiant, "I _quit!_" She turned on her heel and started walking, steps quick and noiseless; she reached the door, slammed it shut behind her, and was gone.

There was a ringing silence in the room until some stranger, God help him, had the nerve to applaud. Well, I thought as another joined in, and then another; it had been very impressive. And, as Tristan began to, followed instantly by Ariana, I thought simply, _I'm dead anyway_, and gave tribute to my revolutionary friend.

At the sound, Helen started, a hand to her cheek as if Kailyn had slapped her, and the noise died away. She looked terrible; her face was pale, her reddish hair was coming out of its bun, and her clothes suddenly seemed larger, as if she had shrunk in the last few minutes. I had to wonder if anyone had ever stood up to her before, had ever called her out like that in front of the unsympathetic world. It had to hurt. This did not mean, however, that I had any sympathy for her, at least not with what she said next. "Well," she practically shrieked, glaring around at all of us, "who here can dance?"

Remembering Tristan and Ari's little maneuver that had forced me to become the official storyteller, I instantly—and vigorously—shook my head. "I—I can't," I explained when Helen looked my way. And then, when this didn't seem to be enough, I blurted hastily: "I broke my last dance partner's foot." As it happened, this was true; the dreaded event occurred during one gavotte lesson with the other young ladies at court. I pulled my leg up too high, shot it down where I thought my partner's foot wouldn't be, and then—_crack._ Bridgette had never really forgiven me for that one (due to her fractured toe, she had had to miss a visiting prince's jousting session that afternoon), but she'd gotten her revenge a week later in a nasty incident I didn't like to think about involving some tadpoles and chilled soup. Now, I realized after about a moment that everyone, save for Ari, was staring at me with blatant skepticism, and I hurriedly looked down. However, surprisingly, and somewhat insultingly, Helen took my word for it and looked toward Ariana.

"I certainly can't dance," Ari sighed, an insolent little smile on her lips. She was, as it happened, a very good dancer—at least by the castle's standards, though even she could never match Kailyn's performances. "I've got two left feet."

"I've got three," Alyson shrugged when Helen turned to her, the same little smirk clearly visible upon her face. The rebellion was catching. "So, unless you want to hire Bethanne, I suggest you either go out and beg Kailyn for forgiveness or start looking for a new dancer with as much chemistry with Marc as she had." This last part could not be denied. Kailyn still hadn't told me why she and Marc were so upset with each other, and I was starting to wonder what, exactly, had transpired. Her reaction to Helen's reference to a lovers' quarrel hadn't really given me a much better idea. I had noticed one thing: the small, thin tattoo that ran around the base of her right index finger, an image of a wreath of leaves, was gone. When I'd asked why she'd had it removed, all I'd received was some muttering about stupidity and an inexplicable "minks," none of which made sense and all of which pointed to more at stake than I had originally thought.

"_I_ can dance," said Tristan now, adopting a large and rather disturbing grin. Ari poked him.

"Not you," Helen snapped, raking a hand through her hair with such force I was sure some of it would fall out, leaving the reddish strands to cover the floor and her half bald. As I was picturing Helen hairless, the bell above the door clanged, and Marc walked in, holding a basket containing a bridle. For a moment, I was confused, and then it came back to me: Helen's errand. Everyone turned to look at him, each wondering if they should be the one to tell him about his dance partner's departure; as it happened, no one did. Still, perhaps at our silence, his expression went instantly from boredom to wariness, and he took a step back.

"Um, what did I miss?" he questioned, narrowed eyes roving to each face in the room, trying to figure out what had happened. Nobody seemed to want to answer, and finally, Helen began to march out of the room as if to an imaginary drumbeat, each step forceful.

"You're fired," Helen pronounced brusquely, pushing past him on her way to the door and yanking the basket out of his hands. "And I need a drink."

"I think we all do," Spencer murmured next to me, getting up. Marc stared after Helen, incredulous, and then turned back to us.

"Why?" he said belatedly in confusion, moving backwards and then forwards again, as if he couldn't make up his mind whether or not to directly confront her. "I thought—"

"Kailyn quit," Spencer summed it up succinctly over his shoulder, jogging after Helen and reaching into his pocket. The room was beginning to disperse now, the others in the troupe standing and gathering near the door; our fellow boarders were moving back towards their rooms, now sensing that this was not a scene they would get any pleasure watching.

"_What?_" Whatever answer Marc had been expecting, that was not it, and, as I was closest, he turned to me as for confirmation, eyebrows raised. I nodded reluctantly. "Damn it," he muttered, passing a hand over his face. "I told her not to do anything stupid."

"Well, she did," Maxwell sighed unhappily from his position on one of the many sofas spread throughout the room. "Quit, I mean. That bitch—"

"Language," I called reprovingly out of habit, and Maxwell shot me a nasty glare. I couldn't help it; he just looked so young that it was strange to hear him swear. In the barracks, I knew, proper boys learned to talk as if they'd been raised in the streets, but Maxwell was too young to serve in the military. The next year he would be obligated to join and serve for two years. It was distressing to consider Maxwell capable of fighting, of killing, but then, it had been distressing to think the same of Johan.

"—_Helen_ made her angry, and so she quit the troupe for good." Maxwell considered this, his face falling. "It was kind of impressive, actually," he added halfheartedly, dropping his pretense of good posture and adopting a melancholy expression. Poor besotted boy. I might feel sorrier for him if he hadn't spent the afternoon asking me if I was sure I hadn't meant to mix up the two phrases in my little slip-up that morning.

"Kind of?" Tristan repeated, coming closer. "It was incredible."

"Where has she gone?" Marc asked him quickly, glancing from the hallway where our rooms were located and then at the door leading to the world outside. "Did she say?"

"No. I'm not sure where she is," Tristan answered, thoughtful, as Ariana slipped her hand into his. "She went outside. I mean, I can't think that she'd be right outside, but she could have—"

"I know where she'd go," Marc cut him off, shaking his head, and started for the door. When no one else moved, he paused and looked back. "Are you coming?" he said to Tristan, who started.

"If you want me to. I don't know—do you want to leave?" he asked aside to Ariana, who gave first a reluctant nod and then a decisive one. We might never see any of them again, she was thinking; we might as well have fun while we could.

"We'll go with you," she announced, casting a look back at me. I nodded, and before I could think better of it, I followed Ariana out the front door.

Marc took us—Ariana, Tristan, me, Maxwell, and Alyson—down by the now-empty marketplace, ignoring the faint breeze leading in the opposite direction. He looked concerned, I noticed, but besides that, his expression was hard to read. But I knew, from the faint golden shimmer about his face, exactly what he was thinking. It was obvious that Marc still loved Kailyn, no matter how much she wanted to deny it. Dropping her the night before hadn't been his fault. Although the graceful dances that Young Ladies and Young Gentlemen studied were nowhere near as intense as the Irentian ones they knew, we had minor lifts on occasion, and I'd been dropped before. But that, I knew, and had always known, was a direct result of my reluctance to trust whatever nobleman's son I was being forced to dance with. I'd never been good at mathematics, but it was an even equation most of the time: trust equals safety, at least safety from being dropped. Kailyn no longer trusted Marc, not as much as she had just two weeks earlier—that, or she no longer trusted herself.

Regardless, he knew where to find her; Kailyn was leaning against the wall of a closed dressmaker's shop. Her arms were folded, her head tipped up to the sky, and when she heard us approach, she only sighed. Tristan and Ariana, inexplicably and without warning, took this opportunity to kiss. _Um. Delightful. _I took a step in Kailyn's direction, if only to increase the distance between them and me.

"They said you quit," Marc stated, breaking the silence in Elfin. He glanced once back at us, and I instantly felt guilty; he still didn't know that I could understand him. "Why?"

"I couldn't stand Helen any longer," Kailyn replied coolly, pushing off the wall and moving closer to him. Behind her, the shutters to the building closed abruptly, and Alyson's laugh rang out as Maxwell squealed in surprise. "I—I lost control."

"She fired me," Marc admitted, inspecting his shoes. His partner looked up at this, attempting to control her expression, but I'd seen guilt there.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly, putting a hand to her forehead. "For that. For everything."

For a moment, it looked as if Marc was going to say something to this, but he just shrugged, staring at the river. Kailyn, however, didn't look away from him, her gaze steady. The tension was actually palpable, enough that even Alyson and Maxwell stopped talking for a minute, and I considered saying something, anything, to bring the atmosphere back to normal. Fortunately, I didn't have to: Ariana and Tristan emerged from their own world, giggling, and a faint expression of distaste filtered across Kailyn's face.

"What's the time?" she asked suddenly in Irentian, glancing up at the sky. It was that strange time of evening when the sky seems to have forgotten what color it wants to be, and glows such a pale blue it seems almost white, the area around the western horizon cluttered with orange-stained clouds. I could barely see the tops of pine trees, reaching to scratch the sky, and felt a sudden stab of nostalgia for the anonymity and, therefore, relative safety, of the forest. Here, in the city, the reflection from the sunset cast a bloody light over the water of the river. It felt like a bad omen, and I shuddered. I felt the tingling start, pressure in the center of my forehead, and closed my eyes as my vision turned inward. _Light; sunset. The air is calm and pure and I am relaxing, waiting, sitting on a cool floor and looking out the window at an expanse, indescribable, of unending turquoise and beside me Kailyn stands and—_Kailyn? I came out of the vision quickly, shaking my head as I glanced at her. I'd never seen it, but that endless turquoise must have been the ocean. The Bright Isles; we would make it to the Bright Isles. Instantly, I felt a rush of relief flooding my brain, followed shortly by confusion. Kailyn, Marc, Alyson, Daniel, Maxwell, Spencer, even Bethanne and Helen—they were staying here. They didn't know who Ariana was. And yet they were all going to come with us? No, that was impossible. It would be hard enough to ask for shelter and protection for Ariana, myself and Tristan—another nine people would just be rude.

"It's dusk," Tristan mused from behind me, answering Kailyn's question, and I started. "So… maybe eight o'clock. Why?" he asked, his voice surprisingly loud. The competition was over, and so many of the mages and warlocks and enchanters had already left the city. I was so used to the constant commotion and noise that I kept finding myself listening that much more carefully to the others, as if their voices might disappear in a sudden rush of sound. It was strange, this calm, and it made me feel uneasy. It didn't help that a storm was brewing in the east (or maybe it was north? I'd never been good with directions), the menacing purple clouds rolling slowly but surely towards the city. Still, no one else seemed unnecessarily anxious, and so I tried to put my strange feelings away for a moment to enjoy the last night with my friends. They couldn't come with us to the islands. We would just keep them from coming.

Of course, we still had to fix the mirror. Tristan had admitted to not knowing much about the strange travel devices, but Ari was confident that we could find someone to mend it for us.

"You know what?" Kailyn asked abruptly, excitedly, as her face lit up with a sudden smile. "Let's go out tonight. Well, I mean, I _have_ to go out tonight, I can't go back to the inn yet, but—it'll be fun."

"Are you all right?" Ariana questioned, and Kailyn smiled, pulling her black scarf down so that it rested on her shoulders. Her hair, the blonde streaks tinged with pink from the sun, came loose, tumbling down her back, and she shook it out with one hand.

"I'm fine, don't worry about me," she laughed, stretching as she got to her feet. "I've had a knack—from way back—at breaking the rules once I've learned the games. Ah—so to speak," she added, grinning. "It's just a bad habit. Skipping rehearsal, talking back to Helen… I don't know. My mother always said I'd be impossible to work with." She winced, remembering. "She was right."

"It's nearly dark," I pointed out, tentatively voicing my anxiety, "and I think there's going to be a storm soon. And besides, nothing will be open."

"I don't know," Kailyn shrugged, gripping the edges of the wall and leaning back, the very ends of her hair caught in the water. "I'm sure we can find a few underworld locations that are open all night. And, you forget, there are always a few taverns open everywhere." I grimaced; taverns were not my friends. There was too much drinking and too little food, although the smoke from the various homemade variations of cigars didn't bother me at all. I tried not to think about the reason for that, and turned instead to face Kailyn. Behind me, Marc and Maxwell were talking in hushed, earnest tones with Tristan, Alyson, Daniel and Ari, debating on whether or not they should take Kailyn's suggestion; I had already decided I didn't really want to. On second thought, staying at the inn alone wasn't exactly the best idea—that was Vallombrosa's warning, now that I remembered it. We shouldn't be alone, no matter how safe we felt now. Although, if Kailyn and the others were coming with us… But I didn't want to think about that now. Now, as I felt that sense of unease growing, it felt more and more imperative that we go back to the inn, retreat into our rooms, and lock the doors.

"I don't think I have much—" I began, reaching into the little leather bag I'd taken to using for my emergency stash of a few coins.

"We don't _need_ any money," Kailyn cut me off, eyes closed as the dying sun bathed her face in its glow. "We don't have to buy anything."

"I don't know," I whined at least partially for the purpose of irritating her, my voice squealing like a mosquito's. "It's so _dark _in most taverns—"

"Well, that's the point. They're just—" she cut me off, and suddenly, effortlessly, she was no longer sitting on the low wall but was standing upon it, the river rushing by behind her. It made me nervous, to see her so close to the water, and I took a step forward, as if afraid she would fall or, an irrational little voice whispered, jump. She wasn't looking at me as she sighed, half to herself, "—so dark we forget who we are."

"We'll go," Tristan called, and Kailyn's head snapped up, a smile stretching across her face.

"Excellent," she hissed, leaping off the wall and landing in a decidedly unladylike crouch, her movements almost feline. It didn't help that her Elfin eyes, cat's eyes, glittered a strange green in the twilight as she straightened up. "Let's go."

It was fortunate that Kailyn apparently knew where she was going, because we had no idea. She loped ahead of us alone, moving with a dancer's fluid grace that suggested she found rhythm in her own footsteps, the same way she found rhythm in a drumbeat. Her long, loose hair streamed down her back, the few blonde strands glowing in the twilight and eliciting double-takes—as well as the occasional catcall—from the other passers-by. She didn't seem to mind, catching the eyes of strangers and smiling back, an odd little half-smirk that was dangerous or flirtatious or both. It reminded me, strangely, of Ariana as she circled the room and searched for a partner during the last ball we'd had at the castle, but Kailyn's motion showcased a strange recklessness. More than once, I turned back to see Marc's opinion on all of this, but each time he appeared to be ignoring everyone, eyes planted on the ground in front of him.

Kailyn ended up deciding on a tavern in the wealthier side of the part of the city reserved for commoners, sweeping inside and allowing us all to follow. This one, I admitted reluctantly, was certainly nicer than the one back in the village where we'd met Lord Griffyn, and, anyway, it didn't seem like it was the sort of place where the dangerous mage would be. It was much too clean, for one thing, and much too light for another. Wizard's lights, exactly like the ones that Ben had made for us back at the Duchess's, dotted the high ceiling, illuminating the few people that populated the bar—a group of three warlocks, each one chewing a cigar, and a few witches a few tables over. Kailyn immediately claimed a table for us, choosing to wait to get drinks because the dark-haired tavern worker was busy speaking to a red-haired witch wearing an outfit very similar to my harlot costume. (Yes, harlot. It is a perfectly good word that seems to have fallen into disuse; I figure that the person to bring it back might as well be me. And, anyway, _Tristan_, I much prefer it to _whore_.) I paid him no heed, instead sitting down quickly next to Kailyn, who perched on the end of the table itself. Tristan and Marc went over to wait at the bar, and as Maxwell attempted to sit down, Ariana reached out and touched his arm.

"Maxwell," she began in what, in the nine or so years of our friendship, I'd come to recognize as her flirting voice (a combination of sweet and breathless, oh-I'm-so-innocent-and-asthmatic), "I'm thirsty. Would you mind getting me a drink?" I supposed she'd forgotten to ask Tristan.

"I want one, too," I called after Maxwell as he swaggered off to join Tristan at the bar, but he ignored me.

"Nice try," Alyson said sympathetically, leaning back in her chair, "but he already knows he won't get anywhere with you. You shouldn't have told him that." I flushed, remembering my stupidity earlier that day while next to me, she and Kailyn both snickered. Showing off has its price, and I'd never before had to really pay it. I suppose I had it coming. Ariana just smiled demurely, examining her fingernails, as the wench behind the counter handed Maxwell two mugs. For a moment, I was hopeful; and then he slurped from one, slopping some over the side and sending it splashing towards the ground. Oh.

"How do you do that? How does she do that?" Kailyn demanded in admiration, turning to me as if she expected me to know why men automatically listened to my closest friend. "It's amazing."

"I," Ariana stated dramatically as she flipped her hair (or what was left of it) over her shoulder and nodded her thanks to Maxwell as he returned, placing the mug on the table before her, "have no idea what you three are going on about." And then, whispered, as Maxwell went back to the bar to talk to the poor girl behind the counter who was minding her own business: "Maybe he's just nice."

"You don't really believe that, do you?" Alyson asked pityingly, just as Kailyn tried and failed to muffle a derisive laugh. Ari started to reply, but Kailyn cut her off, shaking her head.

"_Maxwell?_ Please. Sure, he's _nice_, but he's mesmerized by you."

"And by you," Ari pointed out, and Kailyn promptly went crimson, the mocking expression fading.

"But you have something else, something about you," she insisted, her face suddenly serious. "I just can't put it into words—"

"Some sort of natural, innate _authority_, perhaps?" I murmured into my hand, trying not to laugh. Ariana glanced at me, almost warningly, and I shrugged at her. We would be gone by the next morning, anyhow. And what did it matter if they knew now?

"Ah, you know me with boys," she said lightly to cover the awkward silence. "I snap my fingers and they obey. It's easy." She reached for her scarf as it slipped suddenly from her shoulders, but was too late; it hit the floor. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the tavern worker glancing over at her.

"Well, excuse me, could you teach me that?" Kailyn joked, and I turned back to our group. Ariana was laughing, bending down to pick up her scarf. She snapped back up as Tristan called her name, looking quickly in his direction as a smile spread across her face. She was completely in love with him; it was no longer a secret, and I wondered, briefly, what would happen once we got to the Bright Isles. From there, with any luck, we could stop King Braxton, and then go home. What would become of Tristan? "I have to admit, though, getting Maxwell to do things for you—" Kailyn broke off, shaking her head, but we could tell from her smile that she didn't feel at all sorry for him.

"So I depend on my friends," Ariana shrugged as Tristan joined us, accepting a kiss from him before turning back to face Kailyn. "Is that a crime?"

"You tell me," I said before I could help myself, and received another alarmed glance from Ariana.

"What's going on?" Tristan wanted to know, and Alyson snorted, shrugging off her surcoat and placing it on the back of her chair. An older man entered the tavern, his gray hair pulled back to reveal a sun-beaten face.

"You don't want to know," Alyson confided to the warlock, who raised an eyebrow before deciding, wisely, that some subjects are better left alone. "Is anyone actually going to order anything anytime soon?"

"I'll go," I sighed, standing up. I actually wasn't that thirsty; I just wanted something to do. "What would you like?"

"Ale, please," Kailyn said immediately, handing me a bronze coin, and I tossed it back at her, shaking my head. She'd need it, now that she and Marc both had no steady occupation.

"All right. Anything else?" I wanted to know, turning from person to person at our small table and waiting.

"You sound like you work here," Maxwell commented from behind me, and I jumped about six feet, clapping a hand to my heart as I spun around to face him. Ugh, his sneaking up was getting so old! This was at least the fifth time today, each one with an unsavory question waiting with him.

"Yes, yes, me, the tavern wench," I managed, shaking my head as he giggled, immature as a little boy. Maxwell was only a year younger than I was, but he acted like a nine-year-old.

"Be careful, Marielle, next thing you know you might be outside, smoking with the prostitutes," Ariana teased wryly, each word annunciated and clear. I could feel her eyes on me, watching and waiting for a reaction, and I pressed my lips together, suddenly sick of it all.

"Do you want anything else or not?" I demanded as I whirled back around, my tone sharper than I had intended, and I tensed as Ariana half-smiled at me._ Let it go_.

"I think we're fine," Tristan said, smoothing over the suddenly-rough mood, and I nodded, inhaling a cloud of cigar smoke from one of the passing warlocks and promptly coughing it back out. I had never liked cigars. Quickly, I marched through the smoke and towards the bar. I could feel someone, possibly Ariana, watching me again, and shifted uncomfortably.

"What'll it be?" The wench behind the counter had disappeared—scared off, probably, by Maxwell—and had been replaced with the other tavern worker, a youth around maybe eighteen or nineteen. His eyes were a bright green that reminded me, I realized in a rush of anxiety, of Ben. "Well?" the boy repeated, loudly and impatiently, and I shook myself out of my reverie, tucking a frizzy blonde curl back behind my ear.

"Two ales," I said before thinking better of it. The last thing I needed was to lose my head tonight. "Actually, one." He nodded, and while he prepared it I waited, drumming my fingers on the wooden countertop nervously. I hated ordering things; it was always so awkward. I mean, was I supposed to ask the boy how his day was going? But if he didn't speak, then should I not say anything, either? After all, he had been rather impolite.

Fortunately, I didn't have enough time to dwell on this, as the tavern worker quickly slid a pewter mug into my hand. I gripped the handle, stupidly, while I fumbled with the small bronze coin I owed her. My hand was shaking as I drew it out of my bag, and it slipped between my fingers, _ping_ing on the stone floor before I could catch it. Feeling like an idiot, I dropped to my knees to pick the coin back up, going to grasp it at the same time someone else did.

This person, with a tattoo of an Irentian saying around the wrist, had come out of nowhere, and so I was surprised, automatically jerking up to my feet. Unfortunately, also at the same time, so did he, and knocked into him, sending Kailyn's ale straight down the front of my tunic and completely drenching me. "I apologize," a markedly familiar voice gasped hastily, and I looked sharply up just as I stumbled backwards, sending the mug crashing to the floor. "It's just that you reminded me of—" He fell silent, going dead pale, and I was suddenly and horribly reminded that I was supposed to have been murdered.

"I'll just bet I did," I managed stupidly, blinking at the stranger's green eyes and trying not to scream. Because the tattoos, the voice, and the eyes all belonged to one singular individual that I had been unsure of ever seeing again.

"Marielle?" he asked, stunned. I couldn't breathe, the corners of my vision growing darker.

"Ben?"

**And that is chapter twenty; another cliffhanger, I know. It's addictive, especially when you're in the middle of rewrites. Again, I apologize for the delay—I cut out a subplot that took up several chapters, and while I am not entirely happy with this chapter, I'm really, really glad I didn't post the original. So, sorry! Oh, and Marielle's counting error, for those who caught it, wasintentional. (She and I don't enjoy math.) Also: I got a little bit bored and a little bit inspired and included song lyrics in this chapter (and in the last one). All are from musicals; three, to be exact, and all correspond with a character. I'll include the copyright citation with the next update, but for now, feel free to guess the titles and respective shows from whence the lyrics come! And if, for some bizarre reason like I told you (you know who you are), please don't guess. Thank you very much for reading, and please let me know what you thought of the chapters.**


	21. Chapter Twenty One

**Hey, all! Before you begin reading, a note:**

**You will notice that this is not a chapter narrated by Ariana or Marielle; instead, secondary-character Kailyn takes over for a few pages. Confession time: I did something stupid. (My advice-of-the-year? Don't do this. Like, **_**ever**_**.) I based Kailyn's character off a friend of mine—Lumiere Hikari, actually (who, it shall be noted, puts up with my diva-writer-crazy-person issues with only a few, admittedly valid, complaints). Originally, Kailyn didn't have much to do with the story at all. Then I noticed a line I'd put into one of the first chapters she appears in—"**Kailyn and Marc had stayed with the survivors from their village until two years ago, when they had left home together—"But not 'together, together'," she added hastily, laughing.**" …**_**Yeah, talk about loaded language,**_** I thought. Anyway, the line brought up an interesting dynamic, which led into a bit of an implied subplot. I started rewriting different parts of the story from Kailyn's point of view, adding in scenes that I had only imagined before. And I found that I really liked using her voice, possibly because she has a much darker past than my two regular narrators. Ariana and Marielle only intend to keep living in the "real world" for a while—Kailyn lives there every day. So! I really hope you enjoy this chapter, although it is different than what I've put up before. Thanks for reading.**

**Chapter Twenty-One**

**Kailyn**

There are days when the blood heats in my veins, and I'm reckless, anxious—spoiling for a fight, as the saying goes—and that feeling boils within me. I cast unnecessary smiles at the people clustered in dark corners, flirt at a distance with the strangers whose faces stay hidden, and generally act the way Litza, the woman who raised me after my parents' deaths, always told me not to. It's those few hours when I'm most prone to drinking, to laughing, to letting go. These days are the ones when I'm at my absolute worst, callous and apathetic, but playful—and dangerous, to others and especially to myself. Wild. Heedless. Stupid; imbecilic, while I'm being brutally honest. And then, the next day, I wake up and put my inhibitions back into place with as much care as one putting prized possessions back onto a shelf. Sometimes, however, something happens along the way to bring me back to sobriety, to caring. Sometimes, I remember how to act before too much time has gone by. Sometimes, I come back to who I am before I lose too much of myself. Sometimes.

But not often.

The aftermaths of these moods are never fun. They're comparable, I suppose, to a hangover; you wake up from them with regret, pain, and, generally, self-loathing, often with a fuzzy memory of what happened the night before. The only problem with these moods is that, like when drunk, I lose all sense of myself. I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, and then when I snap out of it, I care too much.

That night, though, I remember feeling vindicated; I had a reason to feel this way, and it was a good one. I'll never admit that it wasn't. Sitting on a wooden table in a tavern reeking of smoke and tension, talking casually with friends, I felt—it's hard to explain. I felt alive, every limb crackling with energy, the faint buzz of adrenaline dancing through my blood, but at the same time, my heart felt as if it was constricting, was devoid of feeling, was dead. Looking back now, this was probably because I knew, somehow, that giving over to this intoxicating sensation of invincibility wasn't the right way to deal with everything that had happened in the last week. _But what _did_ happen in the last week?_ I heard that contrary whisper, always attempting to remind me, to make me face myself. It wasn't working. The answer was easy enough, at least for the coward's way out. _Too much_, I simply thought in reply. And that was true. Enough that it made my head spin if I thought about all of it. But I didn't want to think about it, didn't want to remember, and so I pushed each memory back, shoving it away the way people do with all of their unwanted, unpleasant thoughts. It's so much easier to keep moving forward, to try to let the past vanish.

I glanced off in the direction of the bar, Ariana talking earnestly with Alyson beside me, and briefly caught Marc's eye before looking hastily towards Marielle. Heat prickled across my cheeks, and I bit my lip as that cooling sensation rushed to my ears. It was a natural reaction, meant to calm the elf in question when they were upset or angry. Or ashamed. It was so hard to make eye contact. I didn't know how I felt about him; I just knew that it was awkward when it hadn't been, and that I wasn't sure what to tell him, or if I should tell him anything at all. He'd been my brother and friend for my whole life, and now—

Every strange, confused mental rambling about Marc halted abruptly when I caught sight of my newer friend, the strange little witch who talked too fast; she was kneeling, attempting to pick something (a dropped coin?) off the floor. Beside her was a man (a boy, really, I realized as they both stood) who was easily a head taller than she. In the process of getting to his feet, he "accidentally" got a little too close (much too close for Marielle), knocking the cup she held with his elbow. That little maneuver caused its contents to spill out and all over her tunic, soaking the thin fabric (to the point of transparency, I was sure). Even as he began to apologize, gesturing with an Irentian nobleman's tattooed hand, it didn't escape my notice that he hadn't bothered to take a step back.

I'd dealt with enough of these boys to see where this was going. And I'd dealt enough with Marielle to know that she probably wouldn't.

I slid off the table and hit the ground, starting towards them. Too many times I'd been in Marielle's place, luckily with Marc there each time. Still, such situations never ended well, as after the fight—there was always a fight, much to my shame—we found it best to just move on, into the next town or village. I hated the fighting, especially when it was over me, but I had always been grateful that Marc's presence deterred some of the cowards. Unfortunately, I remembered grimly, it did nothing for the stupid. Behind me, I heard Ariana stop speaking as she noticed what was happening, and heard her chair scrape the ground as she stood.

"We should go," I told Marielle firmly as soon as I reached her, putting a hand on her shoulder and tugging her brown scarf down, to cover the soaked-through tunic at least in part. She only looked at me, confused, almost dazed, and then turned back to the stranger. He, ignoring me completely, was absorbed in staring at her. Though not, I noted, in an immodest way; it was less like he had never seen her before than like he was seeing her for the first time in years. He was pale, I realized, and she was trembling beneath my hand. It seemed as if they knew each other, or had known each other.

"I thought you—" he began, in an accent not unlike my own before stopping abruptly, and I realized, suddenly, who this was. Ben. This had to be Marielle's Ben, the one she kept a sackful of half-finished letters to. A friend, she'd said again and again, just a friend, but I'd seen the letter without knowing who it was for. _Just a friend_, I remember thinking, taking her word for it. Looking at her face now, it was clear that thiswas not the case, not at all. I knew that expression, though I'd never seen it on her—just on Alyson, on Ariana, on nearly every other adult female I'd ever known. Eyes wide, cheeks pink, pupils dilated… a faint, dazzled smile tugging at the corners of her mouth… _Ha. Just a friend, my ass_. And now, inexplicably, he, whatever hereally was to her, was right here. This same thought seemed to occur to the girl beside me, and in an instant, Marielle—who shied away from the slightest accidental brush with Daniel, who refused point-blank to perform at all if Helen wanted her to stage kiss anyone, who did not hug even Ariana, her closest friend—had reached out and pulled the boy in front of her into an embrace.

I immediately began to feel sick and more than a little bitter. Marc and I had been _just friends_, too.

"Ben!" Ariana exclaimed, and I moved out of the way, quickly, before she could push through me. At the sight of her, the boy started, letting go, and Marielle reached out a hand to steady him, quick as lightning. I fought a smile as color bloomed in her cheeks. "Yes, yes, we're all fine," Ari was saying, her words quick in her anxiety as she ushered him towards the door. "We need to speak with you. As in, right now. Kailyn, I'm so sorry, but if you don't mind—"

"No, no, of course," I said hurriedly, backing up. "Of course. I'll see what the others—" They didn't care, and so I shut my mouth.

"What are you—?" he-known-as-Ben began, and Marielle cut him off with a half-strangled choking sound that caught me by surprise, and I turned to stare at her as they exited out the front door.

Odd. But cute, I allowed grudgingly, moving back towards our table. Not nauseating, as Tristan and Ariana were. Ugh. It was sweet for about five minutes. By minute six, I'd started to feel sick of their constant kissing and whispering and shining oh-so-pure aura that simply exuded _love_. By minute seven of no-_you're_-wonderful, I was ready to throw up. By minute eight, I had.

A vague thought floated up from the depths of my memory: when their relationship came out—that had been the day Marc told me how he felt about me. _Oh, God, please, not now, I can't think of that now_.

I glanced to my right, as if trying to shake the thought, and Tristan was standing next to me. I started. I hadn't even heard him come up. "They went outside," I managed stupidly, pointing. He nodded, blue eyes thoughtful as he glanced at the door, and then down at my right hand. I knew what he was looking at.

"So he's Marielle's Ben, isn't he." It was not a question, and although his tone was strange, I didn't try to analyze it.

"Yes. Um, Tristan—" I added as he turned to leave, flushing, "thank you so much for, um, fixing my, um, hand." I waved it, as if he needed a visual reminder. Tristan had been the warlock to remove the tattoo from the base of my right index finger. It had been of a wreath of maple leaves, Santiago's family's symbol. I'd gotten it in favor of wearing a ring like human women did. A mix of two cultures; perfect, I'd thought. I hadn't realized then what the humans so clearly knew: a ring was easily removed. A tattoo wasn't. It all seemed like common sense, after the fact, but—a classic excuse—it had seemed like a good idea at the time. And even though Tristan had tried to be cautious, reciting the spell to remove the ink with genuine care, there was still a thin line of red that marked my skin.

"Oh, it wasn't a problem. I understand." Tristan pretended not to know why I'd asked him to get rid of it, although I was sure it was fairly obvious. He was good at respecting secrets, or so I'd come to find out. I'd never felt the need to give him a reason, though of course I would if he asked. "It was simple."

"I may ask you to do something else for me," I told him, winding a strand of blonde hair around the digit where the tattoo had been. Tristan looked up at that, waiting. "Of course I'll pay you for it," I added quickly, "but—it can wait," I stopped myself, shaking my head as Ariana entered the room again, beckoning him over. I could feel that anxiousness settling, and all of a sudden the whole mood felt spoiled. If everyone was leaving, then there hardly seemed any point in staying alone. And anyway, I didn't feel like drinking. _Self-destructive_, something whispered, and for once, I listened to that little voice in the back of my head. It, at least, always had a point.

"Alyson?" I called across the tavern. It was her I trusted above anyone else. My voice was too quiet, and for a moment I feared it would be lost in the general din of the tavern. Still she heard me, glancing up instinctively. "I'm—" I swallowed. "I want to leave."

I could hear my caretaker Litza's voice in my head as I sank into a split, alone in the room I shared with Ariana and Marielle back at the inn; arms _straight_, toes _pointed_, and don't forget to _smile_, even if it's killing you. Smiling, even when I was just stretching, was very important to her. "It's good practice," she would say, moving one of my arms into position, and I would roll my eyes and bare my teeth at her, which always made her laugh. I was only about ten years old then, and already being forced to teach Marc each dance she, a former dancer herself, taught me. His father (Irentian name Peter, though we always called him Pyedro) thought it would occupy his time, and that it would keep him from becoming consumed with war and killing and hate. Still, Pedro had never thought well of me, had never really liked our friendship. I was an orphan, as so many of us were, and so maybe he thought I was like the other parentless children in our village: wild, uncontrollable, hazardous to themselves. Loose. And now it seemed that, despite Litza's best efforts, that was what I had become.

This is the truth about Santiago, my former fiancé.

Among the elves, marital fidelity is more than just the standard: it simply _is_. Infidelity, on the other hand, simply _is not_. It doesn't happen. I'd tried, once, to explain this to Marielle: we are monogamous. Humans claim that they are, but that's not really true. The best example is found in nature. When swans choose their mates, for example, that is the swan's mate forever. If one of them dies, they don't move on. Neither do we. It is why women as well as men are taught to hunt and to fight—it's widely accepted that we might someday need that knowledge.

Of course, there are always a few instances in which the mate doesn't die, just leaves. With the raids during the Twelve Years' War, the tribes had split up, and more of the younger elves had been exposed to the Irentian culture while in the cities trying to work. When I was young, there had been a few maidens to come home, with red-rimmed eyes and fatherless children and no hope of marrying anyone, ever. Those were the unlucky ones, with visible, tangible signs of their crimes. The lucky ones only had rumors, whispers passing from ear to ear, to mark them for what they were. It was only later that I began to understand these girls, with their defiant smiles and tears late at night. Litza, my caretaker, had been one of those girls, though she was of a different time. It was why, at least in part, the Elders had given her the task of raising me.

(I apologize for straying from my purpose.) My point is that infidelity, as common as it is among the humans, is unacceptable among us. And so when I went to see Santiago, unannounced, I'd been completely stunned to find a woman there. Her name was Chandra, and she'd been living with my fiancé for about half my life.

I hadn't screamed, hadn't cried, hadn't thrown any tantrums or broken any of her things. (She had a bizarre fixation with decorative little clay pots, not that that's important.) Maybe if I had loved Santiago, then I would have fought for him, but I didn't, and so I just left. It was mortifying. While it was true that I'd debated about actually marrying him, it was also true that I'd never really imagined a future without him in it. I was a dancer; it was all I'd been trained to do. I'd always just assumed that I would marry Santiago and—well, not stop dancing, exactly, but certainly he would support me. Santiago was security.

Subtract him, and I was left with Marc and Helen.

Subtract Helen, and I was left with Marc.

Subtract Marc (which seemed increasingly likely), and I was left with nothing, no prospects, no future.

_What am I going to do now? _I asked myself, pulling my knees to my chest and wiping at the unexpected tears. For once, it wasn't a "we." Marc and I had always been a "we." Little Kay and Marcy, against the world.

I'd hurt him, I knew that. God, I'd _used_ him. And he still came after me. How perfect it would be, it could have been, if I hadn't been so stupid.

There was a word for this, I thought absently, sniffling and wiping at my cheeks with the back of my hand. Sniveling, sobbing, too afraid to go and confront the problem, no matter how deep or strange it was. But, regardless of the issues, there was a word for my behavior lately; desperate for attention, horrified when I got it, and now, weeping like a child over the past and everything else that has already died. _Look at yourself_, I couldn't help thinking, standing up and moving to the pitcher of water on the bedside table.

Oh, right. I knew that word.

Pathetic.

The door abruptly opened, and I started, tearing my thoughts from my own egocentricity and onto whoever had just entered—and, more importantly, that that person didn't recognize my tears. Quickly, I splashed my face with the water; it was colder than I expected, sending shock prickling down my spine, and I shivered involuntarily.

"I hate life," a familiar voice moaned, and I looked over, pressing the thin towel to my cheek. It was Marielle, still in the tunic soaked—now stained—with ale. Her eyes were wide with misery, and she threw herself on the bed with a melodramatic sigh. As much as I liked her, I couldn't help thinking sometimes that it wasn't always clear whether she or Ariana was the actor in the troupe.

"What, exactly, do you hate about it?" I couldn't resist asking sharply. As far as I could tell, Marielle was educated, had a job, and now a man she clearly liked had just waltzed into her path; she had no one to tell her what to do, no obnoxious secrets dragging her down. _That's not fair_, I told myself, shaking my head. Of course, everyone has secrets. There are no exceptions. And I think I knew then that Marielle may have been just as miserable as I was. Still, I doubted, in that selfish way that we all do, that her secrets could possibly be any worse than mine.

"It's complicated," she muttered into the pillow, her words muffled. "But I just look so awful and—" she raised her head, green eyes widening as she caught a glimpse of my face for the first time. Instantly, instinctively, I jerked my eyes away from her and towards the opposite wall. "Are you—have you been crying?"

"No," I spat, too vehemently, and strode the little pile of my things, stacked neatly around my bedroll. "I haven't." There, tucked in among my clothes, were my knives; throwing knives, strange as that was. I stopped where I was, running a finger over a cool, smooth blade. It was a silly trick, something I'd done with Spencer before Ariana had come along. As a matter of fact, it had been really nice to have Ariana around for the last few weeks. She'd taken over my roles in all of Helen's little plays (which was fortunate, as I was a terrible actor); she'd been performing with Spencer, as well, which made everyone feel a little safer. Although I did have excellent aim, Helen was never comfortable with me hurling sharp objects towards targets in the middle of crowded city streets. I couldn't argue with that logic, even if she was a complete bitch.

Trying not to think about Helen—how many things was I mentally avoiding, now?—I finally found what I'd been looking for: my little bag of cosmetics. It was more for attracting the attention of customers than for everyday use, but if you knew how to apply the various powders and creams, then you could use them for good rather than evil. And it was something else that wasn't allowed back in my tribe.

"Come here," I said aloud to Marielle, beckoning her over. She obliged, albeit warily, and I pulled out one small glass vial and a thin brush. "Don't worry, this won't be like your storyteller costume. This is real," I promised, dipping the brush into the vial and scraping the excess goop off onto the side, and she closed her eyes. "Good. Don't move." Lightly, I ran brush just underneath her lower eyelashes with quick, steady hands, swiping each line with a fingertip to make sure it wasn't too dark. The result? Well, it wasn't peasant-farm-maid, but it wasn't dance-hall-girl, either. Marielle's green eyes stood out a little better, taking the focus off her pale undereye circles and her pink, sunburned nose. I had a few things that could take care of that, but her whole innocent appearance would be marred if she was wearing powders common among the prostitutes. No, it was best to make sure that she looked herself.

"Very nice," I pronounced, repressing a smile. "Do you have a mirror with you?" Marielle started, biting her lip, and nodded. She was too short to accurately see in the one hanging on the wall, and as I watched she moved back towards her own pile of things (considerably more messy than mine, with clothes strewn everywhere) and pulled out a small hand mirror. It was silver, with faint markings of a strange language—Libonessenian? Duendese?—etched into the sides, but the glass was clearly cracked in half. There was a strange care with the way she carried it, as if she was holding an infant or very small child. It struck me as odd; it was, after all, already broken. _Seven years' bad luck to whoever cracked it_, I thought childishly, and then silently admonished myself. Marielle, noticing nothing, cautiously peered at her reflection, a satisfied smile taking hold of her features as she examined the face looking back at her. She frequently referred to herself as vain; this, I began to suspect as the seconds ticked by, was probably more true than she would care to admit.

"Thank you!" Marielle squealed, stealing a final glance at her broken reflection before putting the mirror back inside the bag. "He—that was my friend, Ben, um, he wants to talk with me and Ari, so I have to—right," she chattered, fishing through her pile of clothes for something to change into. They would do your laundry at this inn, if you paid extra, and we certainly had paid up, even if it meant forfeiting a meal. It was worth going hungry for a few hours in order to have clean clothes. (If you are used to always having freshly washed things to wear, then I have to tell you that there is no better feeling than changing from clothes you've worn for days into something clean. It is indescribably wonderful. In fact, the same goes if you're used to bathing at least once a week.) "I mean, it's very strange," Marielle went on, sliding a new, purple tunic over her head (an impulse buy; we'd all tried to talk her out of it). "I just don't know how I… ah, well, you know how it is when you don't know. Do you think they've got food in the sitting room? No, you know what—never mind," she shook her head, blinking at a spot over my right shoulder. I silently resisted the urge to turn and see what she was staring at. "Never mind. The important thing is that—are you all right, Kailyn?" Suddenly she was looking me in the eyes, intent and focused.

On the other hand, I was so busy trying to keep track of where she was going with each tangent that I was startled by the question and took a bit longer to respond than was absolutely necessary.

"Am I all right?" I echoed, shaking my head as I tried to force the query to make sense. "Yes, of course I am." Out of nowhere, a child's game of repetition and rhythm, echoed in my mind: _this is a ring. A what? A ring. A what? A ring. Oh, a ring_. "I'm fine." _This is a lie_.

"It's been bizarre this evening, hasn't it?" she commented, pulling the skirt of the tunic down absentmindedly and smoothing the fabric. "You just look so tense." _A what?_

"It's nothing," I finally told her, turning to the darkened window. _A lie. _"It's been a rough week." It was too ambiguous an explanation to fully satisfy Marielle, though, and I knew that it would be. And so, before I could remedy it and stop her, she asked the next question, the one I'd been dreading and expecting for a full week.

"Is everything all right between you and Marc?" This was asked delicately, as if she feared breaking something. Like me. I eyed Marielle for a brief second, trying to decode the expression on her face. _A what?_ It was clear that Marielle was afraid of overstepping the parameters of our friendship and asking things she shouldn't, of going too far—but she wouldn't, because it wasn't going too far unless I told her. Lies didn't count. And, no matter how careful I had tried to be, I was losing track of what was true and what wasn't.

"We're fine," I told the bedside table. _A lie._ "Out of a job, but we're fine." Marielle merely looked at me, green eyes perplexed, studying me as if I was a particularly difficult riddle and nodding absently. And then she frowned, an idea blooming in her mind, and she was looking straight through me and I concentrated on controlling my expression because, as much as she could guess, I didn't want her to know._ Oh, a lie_.

These are the lies about Marc, my friend since childhood.

He loved me as a sister. I loved him as a brother. And that was the end of it. We had chemistry as dance partners, but nothing more. He'd comforted me as a friend would when I was upset about Santiago that day a week ago. He didn't make any promises. I didn't make any promises. I would go and marry someone else, eventually. So would he, but we would be close through it all. We were friends. Just friends. Nothing had changed that. And even if it had, then we could forget that and continue as we had begun.

Those are the stories I told myself, the ones I tried to believe for what felt like forever. The truth was only unhappiness and darkness; there was no need to dwell on it, then or now. Looking back, I wish I'd tried harder to remember the truth. I had no idea, then, just how important it would become.

"And you," I blurted, thrusting the focus off of me. "What's the story with you and, um, Ben?" The moment the question was out of my mouth, I realized that I truly wanted to know, and felt guilty that I apparently hadn't when I asked.

"Oh—we met at a friend's," she answered vaguely, waving a hand in the air. "Ari's aunt's, actually. We need—he knows—" she broke into a laugh, nervously, and I furrowed my brow. "We met at a friend's," she finished weakly, offering a smile. I returned it uncertainly, more than a little perplexed. She'd been awkward before, but I'd never noticed that Marielle was deliberately keeping something from me before. It was unpleasant, although entirely rational, and I bit my lip, searching for something to say next. Fortunately, I didn't have to.

"Marielle? We need to talk to you." I started at the voice, Ariana's voice, as she entered the room, Ben behind her. Here, in the considerably better-lit room, he looked younger; he must have been about my age, no older. And, I appraised before I could stop myself, fairly handsome.

I squeezed out behind them, tossing them a wave and a smile. Ben, who I was starting to believe always looked fairly bewildered, nodded back at me as though dazed. I ignored him, moving toward the common room of the inn. I didn't want to leave the building. I felt safe here. Outside, there was nothing open but taverns and a few dance halls ("underworld locations," I think I'd called them earlier), which brought back a few non-self-destructive memories.

In Irenta, bordellos and dance halls are often the same. Dance is such a large part of the culture that it bleeds into everything the natives do, whether they recognize it or not. And, even at fifteen, I'd understood that to survive as a performer, I would have to have a vast repertoire. With that in mind, I'd snuck into a local dance hall once or twice, wearing a too-tight dress and rouge I'd filched from Litza's ancient trunk. Pretending to be one of the, ah, employees, wasn't fun, but I'd wanted to see the most popular variations of Irentian dances before I left home: the salsas, the merengues, and the tangos. Especially the tangos. I'd escaped relatively unscathed, at least partially because Marc was with me, claiming me as his partner once I'd watched the other women and understood what to do. Some of the dances were—a little much (I don't think I need to go into detail). But I could alter some of the racier steps, changing the movements so that the performance toed the line between faintly risqué and acceptable. That was where I needed to be.

Dance halls. _What?_ (I apologize again.) Where was I?

_You're mad_, I heard something within me whisper, and I shook my head in a physical response to the unspoken thought. No, not mad. It is true that I wasn't quite in my right mind, but I wasn't crazy, either. I was just trying to keep from thinking about anything that might make me too upset. The simple truth was that I needed a distraction, badly.

"Kailyn!" The name (my name?) snapped me out of my reverie, and I turned my head; I was still standing in the hallway. The voice belonged to Bethanne, Alyson and Daniel's child. I felt myself relax. "I tired," the child complained as I bent down to scoop her up. Her curly hair was damp; Daniel must have bathed her while we were out earlier. He and Alyson were probably eating; they always fed their daughter and then left her in the care of someone in the troupe. That someone was probably Maxwell. Quickly, I peered down the corridor, just to check, and he was nowhere to be found. Well, then. I guessed that it was my turn to put Bethanne to bed.

"You are all nice and clean, princess," I singsonged, inhaling the soft scent of soap. "Are you ready to go to sleep?" I shifted her in my arms, reaching out to tap on Daniel and Alyson's door. There was no answer, and a quick glance inside revealed that the room was empty. I'd lived with them long enough that I felt comfortable with entering sans permission, and anyway, it wasn't like I would be there for more than a few minutes. The empty drawer that served as Bethanne's bed was ready for her, the blanket pulled back. I carefully set her down inside it, tucking the fabric back over her. I'd always been good with children, and I loved sweet little Bethanne. I never pictured myself raising my own family, and now, certainly, that seemed out of the question entirely. But dealing with Daniel and Alyson's daughter on a day-to-day basis had made it slightly easier to imagine. I helped look after her, as we all did, but I liked to think that Bethanne preferred me over the others, at least slightly. "Do you want a story?" I asked too eagerly, knowing that she would say yes. Bethanne nodded seriously, her hand closing around my finger. "Good." I launched into an elaborate tale involving a dragon and a mouse who become friends, although the three-year-old child fell asleep within a minute and wouldn't have understood anything more complicated than a fable anyway. _What was that word, again? Right_. _Pathetic_.

When I had finished the story, I dropped a kiss on the child's forehead and stood up, still feeling blank and empty. I wasn't ready to go to bed, and Ariana and Marielle were probably still having some secret meeting in our room. Well, fine. I didn't have to go back to our room. I could go somewhere else. Anywhere else. I knew lots of places. Didn't I?

I paused, hovering over the makeshift cradle. Bethanne had stuck her thumb in her mouth, and was currently trying to kick off her blanket. I envied her.

Well, on the one hand, I couldn't leave the inn. I was too tired, and there was nowhere I wanted to go. And on the other, there was a very good chance that I might run into Marc. And then we would have to talk.

I didn't feel like talking. Not to him.

I turned just then, catching a glimpse of someone familiar. I knew that girl. Her hair was stringy, dirty blonde, and her wrinkled scarf was hanging off her shoulders. Her eyebrows, too dark, were sharp against the pallor of her skin, and her eyelids still held traces of purple from cosmetics badly removed. It was the eyes, though, that struck me most. Red-rimmed, shadowed underneath. Exhausted. _And_, something whispered, _broken_. I knew that girl. Me.

Stepping forward tentatively, eyes on the mirror, I watched myself bring a hand to my hair. That motion reminded me of what I had wanted to ask Tristan to do. And since I'd left Helen—yes, it should be easy enough, and I was ready for a change. Scratch that; I was in desperate need of a change.

I stumbled away from that girl in the mirror, focusing on the door and the way out and casting a quick glance back at Bethanne as I did so. She was fine. In fact, she was asleep, her blanket clutched in her fist. I felt my stomach clench in on itself. At that moment, I would have given anything to be her.

I caught Tristan just as he was opening the door to my room, where Marielle and Ariana were conversing in low, serious-sounding voices.

"Wait," I blurted, and he looked back at me, brow furrowed. He was impassive as ever, but I hurried towards him anyway. "The last spell cast on me, can you undo it? Well, I mean, I don't know what spell it was, but it _was _a spell, and I feel like—I mean, I thought you could—I can pay you for it, if you want—" But Tristan, already sick of my babbling, had closed his eyes and waved a hand. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that the charm I'd bought nearly six months ago was releasing, dark brown color spreading down from the roots of my hair to the tip, leeching out all of the blonde.

"Thank you," I said numbly to Tristan, who merely nodded before disappearing into my room. I raked a hand through my hair, unable to believe it. As a favor to Helen, I'd had my hair enchanted at least six months ago. Women did that from time to time, though never really the ones with decent pasts. Yellow hair was much more common among Northerners; it drew attention here in Marquia, where shades of brown and black were the most dominant, though redheads weren't unheard-of. The artificial lightening I'd gotten was only to attract customers. It hadn't escaped Marc's notice that prostitutes all over the country did the same thing for the same reason, and he'd teased me about it mercilessly for weeks. Now, both Marielle and Tristan were part of the troupe. Helen's stupid lies didn't even make sense—a blonde elfin dancer from Irenta. A Northern girl telling stories as a Southern gypsy. Ludicrous.

"Thanks," I told the empty air absently, turning towards the direction of the inn's sitting room. I still felt nothing like myself. I thought I'd erased every physical trace of my future, Santiago, cleanly and quickly. The tattoo was gone. I'd erased every physical trace of my past, undone the hair and the cosmetics and the mess they had trailed behind me. And the sad part? I didn't think I even knew who that was any longer.

I ended up going just outside the inn, staring up at the stars without really seeing them and wondering, idly, what I was going to do with the rest of my life. I still had no idea.

I tipped my head back, shutting my eyes and just concentrating on breathing, in and out, in and out. Maybe this was the key all along—just live from one breath to the next. Forget all that nonsense about living days or even minutes at a time. Too much could happen in a minute. I knew that now.

The door opened, and for a moment I froze, muscles tensing. Then I remembered. I had, quite literally, nothing to lose. I could feel each muscle relax, and I swallowed, trying to listen and just _be_. There were the sounds of the streets—doors slamming, people shouting, even one cat shrieking—and then, one voice, speaking softly in Elfin: "You changed your hair back."

Of course it was him.

My mouth had gone dry, and so I swallowed before answering. "Tristan helped."

"They're in there now, talking." His tone was conversational, light, but he couldn't hide the strain. "I don't like this. Something feels off about this—person they're with."

"With you everything's a conspiracy." _That was harsh_, I mused, as if I was detached from my own words. _Don't be bitter_. I opened my eyes at the realization—that I was bitter, I was jaded. Wonderful. There was Marc, curly hair flat, gray eyes just concerned and strangely raw. For some reason, he looked bizarre, out of place; I'd spent so much time trying to evade him that it didn't seem real to see him here, his image thrust against the background of a cramped city street. "They're friends who haven't seen that boy in a while," I continued after an awkward pause. "Leave it at that."

Marc let my reprimand sit in the empty air for a few moments before he came to join it, carefully sitting down next to me. I was suddenly and acutely aware of the good six inches between us.

"How are you?" he asked quietly, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye.

"I've been better." _Never been worse_. "And yourself?"

"What's that thing Litza says? 'Life is pain and then you die'?" A joke. Litza was hopelessly optimistic. I laughed, the sound faintly hysterical, and immediately slapped a hand to my mouth to muffle the sound. "Well. I understand now what she means."

"I am sorry," I managed, choking on my words. With us, it was always my place to apologize. That had been the case whenever we fought as children. I could just hear little Marcy whining, _she hit me, she pushed me, she was mean, she started it_. I was always the instigator who, now shamefaced, had to heave a sigh of _I'm sorry _and _I didn't mean for it to happen_, whatever _it _was. And that was true now, ten years later. After all—I'd kissed him first.

"I know," he said simply. There was pain, now, and I swallowed back sudden tears. God, why couldn't I stop crying so damn much? "I shouldn't have—" He fell silent, abruptly, maybe realizing that I was starting to tremble. I wanted, badly, to agree with him, to tell him that there was nothing for him to be sorry about. You can't control how you feel. But you can control what you do, and I'd lost control the day I left Santiago. In a way, we both had.

"I do love you." This was unexpected, and I had to keep from clapping a hand over my mouth to keep back the declaration. "I don't know how, though. I mean, if I love you as a friend or—" I drew in a shuddering breath, pressing the heels of my hands to my closed eyelids.

"Will you tell me when you know?"—gently. He was frustrated, hurt, but he could control it. I didn't deserve him.

"I… yes. Of course." When I knew. If I knew. What a mess this was. I stole a glance at Marc, drawing my arms closer to my torso. I wanted to hug him, needed to touch someone, but I wasn't about to do that again. I couldn't use him again. "I'm—I'm going to go to bed. Sleep well."

He smiled at me, a little half-smile that seemed to imply a secret. Or our secrets, both his and mine.

It is those secrets that I will keep to myself. Secrets from our shared past, our combined present—not all unpleasant, not all good. I did consider including them in this reconstruction. But I think that, all things considered, it is best to just let these things die.

Truth. Lies. Secrets. It was getting hard to keep up.

Now, I didn't wait to hear Marc's reply. I gave no excuses, just pushed off the wall and moved, dreamlike, back inside. Back in the sitting room of the inn, everything was surprisingly normal. A fire blazed orange in the grate; a few patrons rested on sofas, drinking tea from steaming clay mugs and chattering amongst each other. A cat was purring contentedly on the lap of Alyson, who stroked its ears absentmindedly and kissed Daniel on the cheek when she thought no one was looking. The picture of normalcy. I froze, turned halfway towards the corridor where our rooms were. Alyson had made it to eighteen with a husband and a daughter. I couldn't imagine that at all; how on earth was she ready for marriage at my age, let alone a family?

Stepping down the corridor to our room, I saw I figure kneeling before our door, her red hair jumping out against the pale gray of the walls. Helen. She got quickly to her feet, glancing once at me and doing a double take when she realized who I was. I remembered, in a touch of bravado, my behavior towards her earlier that evening, and I cringed, stepping around her and staring at the ground. What had I been thinking? _You stupid, stupid girl, what have you done?_

Strangely enough, Helen said nothing, brushing past me with an odd look on her face. It was as if she was trying to contain herself, though from doing what I couldn't imagine. I chose to ignore her, opening the door to find Tristan, Ariana, Marielle, and he-known-as-Ben still in conversation. It was clear from their startled expressions that they hadn't known she was there. At my appearance, the boys got hurriedly to their feet, saying their goodbyes and goodnights rather suddenly. Marielle, I noticed as the door shut behind them, looked slightly (and unpleasantly) stunned. "Did you have a good evening?" I wanted to know, sliding into a clean nightgown and shaking out my hair, which they were both eyeing with trepidation. The mirror was clutched in her hand, now whole, and I realized with surprise that the boy had been a wizard of sorts.

"Yes," Ariana said thoughtfully after a brief pause, stretching her arms over her head. "Thank you, we did." I waited for a moment for her to offer more information, but she didn't. I continued preparing for bed, shaking out my blanket and folding it against the ground. "Oh, and Kailyn," Ari added, and I looked up, brushing my hair out of my eyes, "we're going to be up a little early tomorrow, is that all right?"

"We have errands," Marielle pronounced unnecessarily, her voice detached and dull. She was now sitting on the bed, still fully clothed, and staring off into space. I tried not to analyze her.

"Fine," I replied, grateful for once that I was barely sleeping anymore. "That's fine."

Then, I had no idea what I was about to get swept up into. And to this day, I honestly don't know if I regret what happened next or not.

… **And that is all! Goodness, I don't think I've ever been so nervous to post anything in my life. :) I like this chapter, but I don't know if I like it right after the last chapter. (Does that make sense?) Anyway, I do realize that it's very ambiguous in some places. It is supposed to be like that, and I promise that it's all relevant later on. Also: I chose to use a different narrator for this chapter because I felt that it would feel really pointless to recap the whole story for Ben, and I wanted you guys to see different sides of the two main characters. Please let me know what you thought of this chapter; if you feel that it makes sense, tell me, and if you feel that it makes absolutely no sense at all, please tell me. Thanks for reading.**

**Frogster: Thanks again! I'm glad you liked last chapter.**

**Bingo7: Gracias for your review! You made me think about something: lately, the characters' actions have gotten really dark really fast… it's kind of a shock when compared with the first few chapters. I think that's because I wrote those chapters when I was a year younger. Anyway, thanks for the insight. I'm trying to tone it down, but this chapter couldn't exactly be helped. I'm glad you're excited again, and thank you so much for reviewing! **

**Misschosaku: You win! Great job guessing the **_**Rent**_** lyrics. I'm currently obsessed with "Out Tonight" and the "Tango: Maureen," haha. Speaking of which…**

**Here are the citations for the lyrics that I used in the last chapter (and the previous one):**

**Larson, Jonathan. "Out Tonight." **_**Rent (2005 Movie Soundtrack)**_**. Warner Bros/Wea, 2005.**

**O'Keefe, Laurence. "Bend and Snap." **_**Legally Blonde the Musical (Original Cast Recording)**_**. Ghostlight, 2007.**

**Aguilera, Christina. "Lady Marmalade." **_**Moulin Rouge!**_**. Interscope Records, 2001.**

**Yay for musicals! :) Any songs you see above, I was (or am) in love with and could not stop singing around the house, either because they were fun or because they were catchy or because they were just awesome. Thanks for putting up with my boredom. And happy belated talk-like-a-pirate-day!**


	22. Chapter Twenty Two

**Hey, all! Thanks so much for your patience. :) I know it's been a while since I last updated, and I'm so sorry for that. I won't waste your time with excuses, I promise! Please, just enjoy.**

**Chapter Twenty-Two**

**Ariana**

The morning we were to leave, I woke up to the sound of Marielle exclaiming frantically in four different tongues; then, as I pulled myself out of bed, there was a dull thump, followed by a loud "_Ouch!_" and a hissed apology. The inevitable, I realized, blinking as I hauled myself to my feet, had occurred: Marielle had finally tripped over Kailyn.

The latter was shaking her dark head, rubbing her eyes and telling Marielle, grouchily, that it was fine, she was fine, to shush and let her go back to sleep.

"We need to go," I managed groggily. I thrust my scarf on my head to cover my hair, deciding to brush it later. "Do you have everything?"

"Y-yes," Marielle answered uncertainly, rummaging through the bag she carried on her shoulder.

"My ring?" I added querulously. This item, my official signet ring, was the most important, although I hadn't realized that until she had commented on it a few days before. Without it, I had no way to prove who I was.

"Yes, I think so."

"You think so, or you know so?" I snapped, throwing a pillow that had fallen back on the bed. When she regarded me reproachfully, holding the ring up to the light, I sighed. "I'm sorry. It's just—"

"Ben said daylight," she reminded me, hopping into the dress that she had borrowed from Susanna. They were clean—thank goodness for that service at the inn. I'd never really thought much about it before. I suppose I just always assumed that I would have clean, fresh clothes each day. "It's not quite daylight yet."

"No, but it's getting close." I glanced out the window. The sky was so pale it was nearly white, and already I could see the street coming to life as shops opened. From my position, I had a clear view of the bridge, which, for now, held only the odd traveler.

"Then he'll be here in a moment or two." She was quiet for a moment, shoving her feet into her boots. "Where's the mirror?"

"He took it with him, remember? So that he could make sure it worked properly."

"How is he going to do that?" Marielle sounded fairly skeptical, although it seemed to me that it didn't matter. She and Ben hadn't had a moment alone since we'd seen him, but she already seemed tired of him. No, that wasn't quite the right way to put it, I thought, watching her check the bag a final time before getting to her feet. It was more like she was… disillusioned. I wasn't sure why.

"I'm not sure," I told her now, even though her question had been rhetorical. "I'm going to, um," I dropped my voice to a whisper in case Kailyn woke, "leave a note, so that the others know not to worry. You go on ahead."

"But Ari, I thought we were both going to meet him," Marielle protested.

"We both know him, you'll be fine. Go."

"I really feel like it would be best if we both went—" she began stiffly, ready to launch into a full explanation that I didn't have time for.

"Here's an idea," a new, markedly more sarcastic voice said from the floor. Kailyn. "Why don't you both hush like you promised so that I can get some sleep?"

"Sorry," Marielle and I whispered in tandem, and after a few moments of silent glaring and gesturing, she stomped out the door.

Meanwhile, I sat down on the bed with paper I'd filched from the desk in the corner of the room, attempting to see by the dim light of the window and lamp in the corner, and tried to come up with a note that expressed my feelings towards the members of the troupe over the past few weeks. It had been such an interesting time, full of experiences both good and bad—it was like nothing I'd ever done, or could have hoped to do. For the first time in my life, everyone I came in contact with was actually unafraid to be themselves. They were real. Even Marielle, who I'd known for years, had showed different sides of her personality that I had never seen before.

Then, of course, there was the matter of who to address it to—who to give it to, rather, as they would all read it. I would hand a note of gratitude to Helen only over my cold, dead body; Maxwell might lose it; Kailyn and Marc had quit; Spencer probably wasn't even in his room.

In the end, I decided to give it to Alyson, who always spoke her mind. She didn't just think she knew everything, as I'd heard Maxwell mutter to himself time and time again—she did know everything, and she wasn't afraid to let you know that she did. She'd been right about Marielle, saying that she would be a good storyteller with practice. And about me, encouraging me to keep trying even when I swore I would never fence again. And even about Tristan, although I hadn't wanted to hear it at the time. More than that, she cared about us enough to make sure we got done what we set out to do. Guilt churned in my stomach every time she referenced the next week, or the next show. I knew that those weren't going to come for us. And I hated that.

I tried to keep the note itself short and sweet, thanking the members of the group for their kindness. I stressed that I felt terrible for leaving them at such short notice; that we all did. Still, I felt guilty as I finished. I didn't want to hurt anyone, and especially now, with Kailyn and Marc both gone…

"Ari? Ben's here," Tristan announced, coming into the room without warning. I smiled at him as I stood up, slipping the note into a pocket. "Oh. And, Maxwell and Marc are awake," he added, allowing me to embrace him at the door. "Just so you know."

"I—" I stopped, glancing backwards at the window. The sun had risen. It was a beautiful day, sunny and clear. But looking past the bridge proved problematic, as it was completely covered with a swarm of people, all of them moving with determination to their destinations. Among them, I realized, were soldiers, fully armored, with Helen leading the way. And they were coming towards us.

What were the odds that a group of soldiers bearing the king's crest, Helen in front, were Marching towards the very inn that I, the runaway princess, was staying at? Slim to none. Definitely slim to none.

My blood ran cold.

What was the reward my father had posted for me?

Enough for a stable full of thoroughbreds, I knew that much.

"I'll murder her," was the first thing out of my mouth. Helen. She had betrayed me. "Tristan, get Marielle and Ben. Here, take this—" I shoved the bag into his hands, deciding to forgo my shoes. If I didn't get to the Bright Isles—they would all be implicated, every member of Helen's troupe. If she'd handed me over so easily for such a sum of money, she surely wouldn't hesitate to blame the others. Kailyn. Marc. Maxwell, Spencer, Alyson, Daniel… all of them could be accused of kidnapping me.

_Oh, God_.

I hadn't thought about what my father could assume about Tristan.

"Ariana? What's wrong?" Now Kailyn was up, looking at me with concern as Tristan, following my instructions, bolted.

"Give this to Alyson," I told her, shoving the note into her hands. "I have to leave."

I pushed through the door and into the hallway, where I was met with a crowd: Tristan, Ben, Marielle, Marc, Maxwell, and now Kailyn and I were all attempting to force ourselves into the corridor.

"They're coming," I told Marielle, grabbing Ben's sleeve. "Ben, we need to leave, now."

"What? Who's coming?"

"I don't have time to set up the spell, to make sure it's safe," he stuttered, fiddling with the mirror as Tristan, following my lead, grabbed onto his arm. Marielle took the edge of his shirt.

"I don't care, just get us out," I shouted, panic and then terror rising like a cloud before my eyes. I could hear the clanking of armor, of metal, and then Helen's voice.

"What's happening?" Marc was asking, and I felt Ben's muscles tighten beneath my hand. Then there was Kailyn's voice and then Maxwell's and Ben was panicking but before I could tell them to leave, that this wasn't where they were supposed to be, they needed to stay here, Ben had already said it: The Fifth Lord's Palace in the Bright Isles.

There was the sound of pounding on the door of the inn, and then the clanking of metal. Helen, triumphant, shouting, "There she is!" and then the wind started, and then we were all in the air and upside down and over and back, colors blending, and then a rush of air and _slam_ and then everything was still and silent. I inhaled deeply, forcing my eyes to open to the brightness; I was alive. Sprawled on a white expanse of sand, endless turquoise water stretching in front of me for miles, but I was alive. I twisted around to catch a glimpse of the building behind me—it was orange, built of adobe brick with dozens of exquisite stained glass windows, and it was absolutely enormous. We had reached the palace. I fell back in relief.

"What," a familiar voice exclaimed, "the _hell _just happened?"

I looked to my right and realized, with a sinking feeling, three things:

The first was good: no one was hurt. In fact, contrary to Ben's worst fears, no one had arrived missing an arm or inside out or any other number of horrible things that could have gone wrong. Tristan even had the bag containing King Braxton's original proposal and my signet ring.

The second wasn't so good: Although Tristan, Ben, and Marielle had made the trip with me, we weren't alone. Because standing, still in a nightgown, her arms folded, was Kailyn. Beside her was a very confused Maxwell, and seated unceremoniously on the ground, muttering to himself in Elfin, was Marc.

And the third little problem: Ben was empty-handed. The mirror was nowhere in sight.

We had no way of going back.

**Thanks so much for reading! I know that this chapter wasn't the best, but don't worry—more are coming with more action, I promise. I haven't had much time to work on this piece lately (I had a monstrous project for school that took up all my time in November), but with Christmas break, I'm starting again. I hope you take this as a Christmas present to everyone who read this! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas Eve.**


	23. Chapter Twenty Three

**Hey, all! If you're reading this story right now, then congratulations and a huge thank-you—you stuck with me, even though I didn't update for over a year. Unless this is your first time reading this all the way through, in which case congratulations and a huge thank-you anyway :) Because it's been so long, here's a brief recap: Ariana, Tristan, and Marielle have wound up on one of the Bright Islands thanks to their friend Ben—but the spell went slightly wrong and they ended up bringing more people than they were supposed to, namely Kailyn, Marc, and Maxwell. **

**1: thank you so much for your review! … and merry Christmases 2009 and 2010 to you, belatedly :)**

**frogster: thank you so much! Merry Christmases 2009 and 2010!**

**alexa rg: I'll be honest: when I got the alert that you had reviewed, you definitely made me remember this story. Thank you for your review, and I'm so glad that you reminded me of how much fun writing this piece has been and still is. **

**Chapter Twenty-Three:**

**Marielle**

I have a confession to make: I used to be a liar.

When I was little, lying was fun. It's what got me into trouble the most when I was younger; too often, _Marielle has a very active imagination_ translated to _Marielle likes to say things that aren't true_. And I had learned as a child that while sometimes it _was_ believable for it to have been Johan's turn to go to mathematics lessons with the tutor, it was never believable to be late to supper because you found a lion who can talk. Lying is wrong, I was taught, and I understood that. But the fact remained that, on occasion, twisting the truth was highly recommended, maybe even necessary. Recently, that had been truer than ever.

But lying—in one way or another—nearly always comes back to bite you. Like right now.

"I don't understand," Maxwell was saying, dazed, trudging through the sand after Ariana and me. The palace rose in front of us; all sun-baked adobe brick and shimmering windows, it glittered in the sun. The pounding, burning, brain-melting sun. I could feel exhaustion pulling behind my eyelids; it was one of the reasons that travel by mirror was so unpopular. The fatigue alone was brutal, and I could feel it deep within my bones as well. But we had arrived, safely, and now we had to convince the governor of the Bright Isles that a ragtag group of performers was, in reality, the Marquian princess and her entourage. Hooray. "Ariana, you're the dead princess."

"Yes," Ari told the group behind us, pulling at her scarf. "I am."

"What does that make you?" Maxwell asked me, making no attempt to keep the disbelief out of his voice. Well. I guessed we deserved that. "The fairy godmother?"

"I'm her lady-in-waiting," I mumbled, gnawing on a thumbnail and trying to remember my part in all this. "Actually."

"And Tristan is—"

"_Tristan_," Tristan himself snapped, mostly to shut Maxwell's big mouth, "is the archetypal antihero, the not-quite-knight-in-shining armor, the classic clever youngest son who wins the princess's heart through his intelligence, charm, and devastating good looks."

"You forgot modesty," Marc muttered, pulling at the collar of his shirt as he swept a glance out at the twinkling sea. He still looked blank; this quip had come automatically.

"Right you are," Tristan agreed, "and modesty. Maxwell can be the talking cat."

We had found a set of some sort of trees, near the edge of the beach where the sand turned to thin grass, with long, branchless trunks and bright green fronds. I had never seen them before. The fronds provided some shade, some coolness in the heat of the day—but not much. I could feel myself starting to sweat. _Yuck_.

"But what are we doing here?" Maxwell whined again. His voice was grating on my nerves.

"_We_ are not doing anything. _I_ am going to see the governor," said Ariana, and there was an edge to her voice that I recognized. For a moment, I couldn't place her tone; and then, as she continued, I realized: she sounded exactly like her mother. "All right; this is far enough," she declared, turning around to face the group. "I'm sorry, everyone, but it won't make the best impression if we all turn up at the same time."

Glancing at the others, I had to agree. Ben was stunned and panicked, flexing his hands as if doing so would bring back the mirror we had broken. Kailyn was standing, dazed, her arms folded over her nightgown. I didn't think I'd ever seen her speechless before. Marc, still possibly half asleep, looked as though he'd just had an unexpected punch to the jaw. Maxwell was sitting on the blinding sand, face screwed up into a scowl like a toddler's. Even Tristan had a strange, snappish look on his face. Especially with the after-travel exhaustion, it didn't exactly bode well for all of us to appear before the governor at the same time. After all, he had no idea what we were about to say.

Ariana took charge when no one spoke up. "Here's what is going to happen. Kailyn, Marc, Maxwell, and…" She paused, eyes lingering on her dear, darling, beloved, mutinous-looking special friend, who shrugged and raised his eyebrows as if to say that he didn't care. "And Tristan," she continued, "you'll stay here. Ben and Marielle, come with me. We're going to try to speak with the governor. If he agrees to hear us out, we'll come back for you. But if an hour goes by and we haven't come back—"

"We should do what?" Kailyn asked suddenly. _There_ was some of her sass. "Start walking?"

"I guess so," Ariana snapped. At this, Kailyn seemed to start, and as she drew a breath, I knew we would undoubtedly be in for the worst tongue-lashing of our lives.

"We're sorry," I blurted before she could speak, and effectively silenced her in surprise. "We all are. You shouldn't have been brought along—" Ben inhaled sharply, as though about to apologize. I kept my eyes on Kailyn. "—and so we're sorry. It was an accident—"

"Yes, it was," Ariana said. "But this has to wait. Marielle, I need you to come with me."

"You can't just _leave_ like this!" Kailyn exploded, throwing her arms in the air. "Not when we don't have any idea what's going on! I don't know where we are—we could be found, killed, what if we can't get back home?"

"This is bigger than you," Ariana said flatly, and Kailyn bristled like an angry cat. "Than all of us. And no one," she said, eyes roving over of us, "is going to be killed. Tris, tell them the whole story," she added, almost as an afterthought. "They've got to know now."

With that, she stepped out of the shade of the trees and started for the palace. I hesitated before joining her, Ben right behind me. Trying not to think of the look on Kailyn's face, I focused on what was ahead, and on the crashing of the waves, but I could just hear Tristan beginning the tale from his starting point rather than ours.

It took at least ten years to reach the dirt path leading up to the palace doors. The building itself glittered in the sun, as though there were diamonds sprinkled across the very structure itself, and the doors, dark wood inlaid with green glass, stood at three times my height. A fence made out of the same sandy bricks as the palace wound around the whole building, leaving an empty space for the actual entrance—hospitality, I remembered, was important here. Even from a distance, I could see that every so often, a guard had been posted.

The guards were the worst part of the walk. The closer we got, the taller they got, and the larger and scarier the pikes they held became. I was used to guards at the castle or on street corners, usually former soldiers who might carry a sword and, certainly, a knife or two. Those were generally nice, always up for a card game or with a joke to tell. These guards, draped in orange fabric that stood out against their olive skin and black hair, looked as though they had never heard a joke in their lives. By the time we were only a stone's throw from them, I had seen the chains they wore as belts—gold chains, decorative but almost certainly for a) forcing prisoners along, or b) strangling prisoners when they became too much trouble to force along.

If she, too, was afraid, Ariana did not show it. She didn't stop until Ben stepped in front of her. The two guards were staring straight ahead, impassive, as though they had not noticed us at all.

"Princess," Ben hissed after they failed to acknowledge us, "perhaps this isn't the best—"

"Marielle," Ariana said in that same hard voice, talking over him and staring back at the guards, "what did you say about hospitality here?"

I blinked and tried to remember exactly what my governess had said about the culture in the Bright Isles. She hadn't used the word hospitality, she had said—

"The practice of welcoming strangers has been a part of the culture of the Bright Isles for generations," I answered in my teacher's monotone. "Hospitality is considered a right to all who pass through these parts. It applies as much to a peasant's home as to the governor's palace. Probably." The governor would be Irentian, but he still was the ruler of the people. He had to abide by their rules. Didn't he?

Whether it was true or not might not matter for much longer, as Ben was stepping forward.

"Good afternoon," Ben called out pleasantly to the two guards in front of the doors, and they lowered their pikes as he held out his hands to show that he was unarmed. "Do you speak Irentian?"

The guards didn't answer.

"Please," Ben said, "we need help. Can you understand me?"

More silence. Then, just as Ben sent a _what-now?_ glance back at the rest of us, one of the guards moved as if to nod. His partner jabbed him with an elbow as if to stop him, but we knew that, whatever else, the guards could understand us.

"Thank you. We need to see the governor," he said, and it was obvious, at least to me, that he was trying to sound confident. My heart sank. If I could hear it, so could they. "It is urgent."

Again, the two men said nothing. Neither one moved. "This isn't getting us anywhere," Ariana's voice came from behind me, hushed and panicked.

"I'm sorry," Ben said through clenched teeth. "I can't do anything unless—"

"_Stand down, guards!_"

This was a new voice; an Irentian one, though it took me a moment to realize it. High, slightly scratchy, it sounded as if it belonged to a young girl—and it came from behind the gate.

"Guards! Stand _down!_" As the guards obeyed, their expressions fading from determinedly blank to confused, I caught a glimpse over Ben's shoulder of who the speaker was: it _was_ a young girl. She looked around twelve years old, and skinny, with dark hair pulled back in a series of braids that wound into a knot on top of her head. The moment she saw us, she gasped and threw open the gate.

"It's you!" she cried. She stumbled forward, tripping over her too-long divided skirt, and when Ben reached out a hand automatically to steady her and she looked up at him, I knew I'd found a rival. "Well… it's almost you," she admitted as she reluctantly let go of his hand. "Where are the others?"

"Others," Ariana repeated blankly. "What do you mean?"

The girl laughed. It was as if the sound was bubbling up from somewhere deep inside her, as if she laughed often and knew how it was supposed to be done.

"The others, Princess! There's… oh, there's someone who plays instruments, I'll like him. And your friend, the warlock. Oh!" Her olive skin blushed pink as she whispered, "And an elfin boy who's really handsome."

I was delusional with exhaustion, possibly hallucinating, and melting under the sun, and so I found that, despite the wrongness of the whole situation, all I could think about was the idea that Marc definitely did not need anyone else to boost his ego.

But even with my brain bubbling, I realized in confusion that she, clearly, knew us. I glanced at her a second time, trying to make sure that I hadn't met her before, and no—nothing. I had never met this girl before in my life. She knew who Ari was, though, and she seemed to know who everyone else was; at the very least, she knew what we looked like.

"You know who we are," Ariana said carefully, trying to be diplomatic. The girl burst into another fit of laughter. It was starting to annoy me.

"Only since yesterday," she giggled, as though this was helpful. "Well, see, I learned yesterday that there were visitors coming. So I found out who you were. I was watching," she confided, "this morning when you had to disappear. It was such beautiful magic," she added to Ben, who started when she touched his hand. His surprise didn't keep him from smiling. "But you're here! And I'm so glad. It gets so _boring_ here sometimes. Now. What are your names? I know you're the Princess Ariana, my tutor told me that. But I don't know who you are, or you."

This was oddly convenient and incredibly strange. Perhaps I was dreaming?

"Well, we can get to that later," said the girl awkwardly when neither Ben nor I said anything at all. "Oh, we're going to have so much fun!" she cried, squeezing one of my hands. It was all I could do not to pull it from her grasp. "Just think, there's so much you can tell me about what's back home!"

Over her head, Ben met my eyes and then looked away quickly. My stomach lurched.

Well, I was definitely not dreaming.

"Hold on for one moment, please," Ariana interjected. She had looked progressively more harried throughout the entire conversation, and this was too much. "Forgive me—I do not want to be rude—but who are you?"

"Lela, daughter of Carlos and Rosaura," the girl answered instantly.

Well, that cleared _that_ up.

"And you live here," Ari said in a voice of measured calm.

"Yes, with my family."

There was a longer pause this time.

"Who is your family?" Ariana said, her voice shaking with the effort to sound pleasant; one of her hands was clenched so tightly that her knuckles were turning white. Lela did not appear to notice.

"Well, my father is the governor. His name's Carlos. He received the position ten years ago. You came here to see him, yes?"

Hallelujah.

Her name was in fact Lela. And she was fifteen, not twelve—but she had just had a birthday, so I felt justified in referring to her as slightly younger than she was. The reason she had known who we were, she explained, was that she was a seer, and a gifted one at that.

Being a seer meant that she had a much clearer view of the future than I ever could, and that she had the ability to interpret a crystal ball. I didn't know much about using those except that Tristan had once had to grudgingly admit that they worked, "but only for certain people." The process of making one was very complicated and could take up to three years, plus dozens of expensive spells, and even then, only the person who cast the last spell was able to use it. A crystal ball simply wasn't a practical object to have—although it was useful. It worked the same way as my visions _and_ the same way as Ben's father's magic mirror; with it, apparently, one could see the present as well as the future. Lela, who had been born with a talent for seeing, was an asset to her father and, right now, to us.

She told us this inside the palace, chattering away in a courtyard filled with exotic plants and flowers, the colors of which kept me a little on edge. We were waiting for her father to finish an audience with one of the guards, sitting with Lela and two of her servants—a guard, also in orange, and a young woman holding a baby. Ariana was restless, jumping at every noise; I couldn't blame her. As much as I wanted to believe that we were here, we had made it, this was the end of sleeping on the floor, I knew better than that. I had no idea whether or not Lela was lying about her intentions for us. It looked as though we could trust the twelve-year-old. But there was no way to be sure. Even seeing the future in maddeningly vague flashes couldn't help us here.

But when you meet a twelve-or-fifteen-year-old in command of very tall, very scary, very _armed_ guards, and she says _follow me_, I should hope you follow her. And so we had.

Rather than dwelling on the idea that Lela might wind up an unlikely assassin, I tried to focus on the garden around me. There was a fountain running with clear water, and, yes, large golden fish swimming about inside it. Purple, exotic-looking blossoms swayed against yellow-headed flowers on thin green stems, and the walls were covered in green vines marked with blue petals. Birds twittered overhead. A few cats, bells strung around their necks, lay curled up beneath willow trees, piled on top of each other in a way that made me itch. As I glanced over at a small patch of ground with a few green herbs, the rows labeled, I noticed the sandy quality of the soil. Not much could grow naturally, but—_ah_, I realized with a sudden rush of hope, _they use magic here_.

Magic meant another way off the island. Magic meant that we could be home, and fast, and if the governor wouldn't help us then we could figure it out somehow. We had Tristan. We had Ben.

"… and I just love the fountain, it's my favorite part," Lela was saying to Ben now, a black cat perched in her arms, smearing cat hair all over her front. I twitched. She couldn't be an assassin.

"It is beautiful," he agreed, and I swallowed hard, feeling quite suddenly as though all desire to speak had been sucked out of me. The more time I spent around Ben, the more aware I was of how much had changed. Kailyn had tried, but what she had done the night she offered to help was painted on, only temporary. I was different than I had been when I had met him, and I wasn't sure if it was all for the better. All right, I knew it wasn't all for the better.

"Lela," said Ariana after she had finished another pointless observation involving fish and the cats, "was your father aware that we were coming?"

"Oh, he knows you're here," she said airily. She handed the cat to Ben and stepped forward, wiping her hands on her tunic. "He'll be done in just a moment. I sent some guards to find your friends."

Marc wasn't going to like that. I glanced at Ari, who appeared to be having the same troubling thoughts that I was.

"I'm not sure they'll understand," she faltered, looking to me and then to Ben for support. "Do your guards—they speak Irentian, yes?" _Or Irentian-Elfin?_ I wanted to add, but bit my tongue and looked back at the sky. If Marc killed the guards we would probably be thrown out, and then we were done for anyway.

"Oh, please, don't worry, Princess!" Lela exclaimed. "Earth and sky, you must calm yourself. You think our guards were meant to harm them?"

"Of course not," I said hastily, for this seemed important to emphasize. "We just don't want—"

"Thank you, Lady," Ariana said in that same tone, and I felt the interruption like a splash of cold water on a colder morning. I was the lady-in-waiting again, and although we had always put on a show for the rest of the court, I'd forgotten my role for a while. "But I believe that it is best that I speak with our host, and quickly. Our message is of incredible importance, and we have traveled a very long way. Lela, I need to know that your father will believe that I am who I say I am."

Lela absorbed this, unaware that we were all leaning forward, nervous, suddenly desperate to hear the answer.

"I know who you are," she pronounced after a moment. "You are the Princess Ariana, and you have the ring to prove it. There are no charms or spells to hide _you_ or confuse your identity. My father will see this and he will believe me."

_Please_, I thought as a cat meowed next to me, _please don't let them kill us_.

"Milady?" a faltering voice asked, and both the governor's daughter and I turned towards the sound. It was a young man with caramel skin to match Lela's, and as he looked at her, he dropped into a quick bow. "He is ready to speak to you."

"Wonderful," Lela said with a smile, extending her arm to Ariana. "Shall we go in?"

"One moment," Ari said. She took a deep breath and turned back to me. "The bag contains—"

"The copies of the plans, the letter to the assassin, and your ring," I recited with an attempt at a smile, tucking the blade of grass I'd been playing with into my palm. "Princess," I added too late, and Lela laughed.

"So formal," she teased. " 'Princess,' 'Lady,' all that is so _funny_! Now, come, Ari, we've got to hurry."

I squeezed the blade of grass into a ball.

"I will come with you," Ben said suddenly, and I started; I'd forgotten that he was there. He stepped forward, past me and to Ariana, placing the cat next to the fountain. I fought a sneeze. "I am the princess's protector, and I will not allow her to be interrogated alone."

This time he didn't sound nervous or even insecure; instead, he sounded steady and sure, as if he too had attended the recent lecture on How to Sound Like a Proper Monarch that I had apparently missed out on. I bit my tongue.

"Well, of course you may come with her," Lela said, surprised. "Now, you, ah, Mary Ella—"

"Marielle," I said, but she didn't hear me. One of the cats wound around my ankles. I sneezed again.

"—there is a suite of rooms reserved for guests just off the courtyard," she went on. "You can follow Nina to yours." She indicated the woman holding the child, who, yes, was also swathed in bright orange. "Princess Ariana, Ben—I shall present you to my father." She giggled again, and as she led them to the door of the king's audience chamber, I swallowed hard, closing my eyes and focusing. A few pictures danced in my mind; the king nodding, Ariana smiling, Ariana frowning, Ben staying silent. Nothing more came, and after a moment I was forced to give up and follow Nina. At least in the vision, I thought as the door swung open, there had been no blood.

Ariana glanced back at me before she entered, smiling a wish-me-luck smile and looking as though she had every idea exactly what she was doing. I hoped that she was right.

… **Wow. I can't believe that I started this story two and a half years ago; it's totally insane to think that I've been working on it for so long. This last year has been crazy for me—I started college, changed my surroundings, everything—and so it was easy to let this story take a backseat. It has changed so much over the course of time, which is why it is so important to me to finish it. Thanks for reading :)**


	24. Chapter Twenty Four

**Hello, all! A thank-you to Alexa Rg and frogster, who sent lovely reviews with the last update :) this chapter has a bit more of a side of the story we haven't seen in a while; I hope you enjoy!**

**Chapter Twenty-Four:**

**Ariana**

Lela led the way into the governor's audience chamber. Her eyes were fixed straight ahead, and a sunny smile played about her lips, but I was reluctant to take those cues from her. I kept my face impassive. In some political situations, it's advantageous to be taken as a fool; in this one, it definitely was not. I was shaking enough inside as it was.

The room appeared dark after being outside in such bright sunlight, and for a moment after the doors closed I could see nothing but four or five spots of brief illumination. For a moment, I wasn't sure what they were. Slightly larger than a candle flame and smaller than a lantern, they looked like one of the spheres of light Tristan tossed around when he was anxious. But these floated freely in the air, and as I followed Lela, my eyes adjusting to the dimness, I saw that they were lining up to make a path. At one end was the door. At the other was the governor, Carlos. I didn't dare look too closely at him for fear I would lose my nerve altogether.

I waited until Lela had stopped, and, following her example this time, dropped into a curtsy. It had been so long since I had attempted one, but with the gesture I remembered a thousand occasions just like this one, with a thousand smiling faces blurred together. As I rose, I took in a deep breath. I was meeting another foreign dignitary. It was not a new occurrence. I was fine.

"Lela." The voice speaking was high and thin, and the breath I had taken rushed out of me in astonishment. I had expected a deeper sound. "I see you have brought a visitor."

He did not sound surprised or disapproving; I couldn't read his flat tone, and so I forced myself to look up.

Lord Carlos of Irenta, Governor of the Bright Isles, stood facing us while his daughter scampered to his side. He was dressed like a member of the Irentian court—not all that different than the style I was used to—but wore five rings on his right hand. They were gold, each with a different color stone, and after a moment, I realized what they meant: each was a symbol of his power over the islands. He had a sharp, pointed nose that contrasted with the large brown eyes he shared with his daughter, and as he pointed them in my direction he did not offer a smile. "This would be the, ah, dead princess?"

"Yes, Father," Lela said, her voice even higher and clearer in the dark room. Something beneath me moved, and I started, biting my lip to keep from gasping aloud. My shoes were silhouetted against a clear, sandy bottom several feet down; I was standing on a glass aquarium. Beneath me, several long, strange-looking fish swam slowly back and forth. "Father, may I present to you the Princess Ariana of Marquia and her personal guard—" She paused, trying to figure out how to introduce Ben, but her father was uninterested.

"I know who you are," he said, and took a step towards us. Two of his guards I hadn't seen behind him stepped forward as well, and I tensed, already defensive. "What I do not understand is why you are here."

This was it. Here was my reason for leaving Aunt Ivy's, my reason for dragging Marielle with me, for lying to Tristan and allowing my parents to think that I was dead.

"I'm here," I heard myself say, and nearly glanced back at Ben in surprise, "I'm here because—"

"Stop," the governor ordered, and I shut my mouth with a snap, stepping backwards as he came closer. "You are wearing a weapon," he said to me, and I felt heat prickle over my forehead and then abruptly wash down my spine. The dagger. I had forgotten all about it. "Remove it."

"Oh, Father, don't be angry," Lela soothed while I reached into the bag and drew it out by the hilt. Lord Carlos's eyes stayed on the blade even while I set it on the ground and pushed it with my foot so that it spun across the glass floor. "She didn't know. I didn't tell her," his daughter said with another one of her laughs. This time it was too loud and girlish to be charming. "Please don't be upset."

"Your guard wears none," Lord Carlos mused, now stepping around me and looking at Ben. "Strange, for a girl of your station."

"I carry my own protection," I replied. If he had some sort of affinity for spotting weapons, he had none for spotting magic, for he left Ben standing there to return to his position in front of us. If Lela knew, she said nothing; or perhaps, I thought, he was a powerful mage himself and didn't need to worry about a seventeen-year-old in training. My heart beat a little faster, but I could do this; I could speak to him. "I am a lady of Marquia. We protect ourselves."

He snorted. "Yes, yes, like the barbarian queen." It was a reference to my great-grandmother, who had ruled alone and fought a war by herself, and I chose to nod. She had been a strong monarch, no matter what she was called. "Why, then, do you even have a guard, Princess?"

"The same reasons that you do, my lord." I chanced a smile, gesturing at my tangled hair and ragged dress. "For the sake of propriety."

He laughed at that, which surprised me. He sounded so like his daughter that I gained confidence and laughed with him, but I had learned something. He was easily half a head taller than I was, and with two guards, even taller, behind him. There was no way any weapon I carried could do any real harm to any of them.

"So, please, tell me again," he said after a few moments, the lights above us growing just a little brighter, "why are you here?"

"I am here," I said carefully, "to warn you about an invasion." Next to me, Lela gasped. I tried to ignore her.

Lord Carlos didn't miss a beat. His eyes focused somewhere over my head, he simply inclined his head. "From whom?" he asked.

I waited until he looked at me, eyes quizzical, before answering. "From Marquia."

For a long moment, there was absolute silence. I don't believe that anyone in that room even dared to breathe. Finally, Lord Carlos spoke.

"Marquia has a fragile peace with Irenta," he finally said. "I have been watching your country. _We_ have been watching your country," he amended, sending a quick glance in his daughter's direction. "And we have seen nothing regarding your father and plans to attack."

"My father has recently chosen to abdicate and is not responsible for this," I said with perhaps too much force, my hands shaking as they clenched more tightly around Marielle's bag. "The man he named as his successor in light of my—my death has made a deal with the king of Libonessen." While they watched, silent, I reached into the bag and drew out the paper about the assassin. "King Braxton was supposed to marry me. He wanted to have me killed so that my father would agree to use our military against you."

"We have seen nothing about this," said Lord Carlos, but he was skimming the letter, eyes roving back and forth across the page. "This is difficult to read," he commented after a moment, and it was all I could do to hold back a nervous laugh.

"I believe he wrote that himself," I said, because it sounded a lot better than _my lady-in-waiting copied it word for word honest I swear we didn't just make it up_. "This, however, is dictated to someone else, but is marked with his seal." Reaching into the bag for the last time, I grasped the final set of papers. Braxton's original proposal. It seemed as though it had been years rather than months since I had sat in my father's Council and listened to my fiancé read his plans aloud.

I stood, waiting, while the governor turned the pages over and over again. Ben, who had remained silent, took the opportunity to press a hand to my shoulder to let me know that I was shaking.

When he had finished with the papers, he folded each one and tucked them into the waistband of his tunic.

"Lela," he said, turning to his daughter, "does she lie?"

Without hesitation, while I trembled and prayed that she would answer in the way I hoped she would, Lela shook her head no.

"Then I trust you, Princess Ariana," said Lord Carlos. Abruptly, relief flowed down from my chest all the way to my toes, and I couldn't keep from pressing my hand to my heart. For the first time in months, someone had simply believed me.

He clapped his hands twice, and immediately the four or five little lights multiplied by ten and shot into the air, sending light soaring across the room and bringing everyone into sharper focus. My eyes, having just gotten used to the dark, were sent back into shock, but I didn't care; he believed me, I was safe, we would get out of this mess alive.

"Thank you for your trust, my lord," I said, dropping into another curtsy.

"I trust everyone Lela says to trust," he said simply. "It's easier that way." It didn't sound easy at all, but I was so relieved that I didn't care if he only trusted people with dark hair or sandy homespun dresses. "Obviously, you need protection. You shall have it here."

At that, I opened my mouth to thank him again, but he held up a hand to stop me. "Until the mourning period is over, your father is still the rightful king of your country. If he knows that you are alive, he might think differently about giving up his throne."

In the end, the governor decided to send a message to my parents and called for a quill and ink right there on the spot. He wrote the letter, but I sealed it with my ring. I hoped that it would be enough to convince my father of the truth. As he ushered in the servant whose job it would be to deliver the letter, I stood nervously, trying not to shift my weight from foot to foot. The idea that the floor hinged on a large water-filled chamber containing fish was not a comfortable one. Lela noticed my anxiety after a moment. "Don't worry," she assured me, indicating the largest one, which was gray with faint black stripes and moving slowly, its tail curving backwards and forwards as it swam. "They're mostly for show."

I made a mental note to ask Marielle what these things were. And also what Lela could have possibly meant by "mostly."

As it turned out, Lela wasn't the only one here who practiced magic. The moment he handed the letter to the thin man who was to deliver it, the man disappeared—gone, without so much as a puff of smoke to ever indicate that he had been there.

After that, there was nothing to do but wait for a response. An answer, Lord Carlos explained, would take several hours—if in fact the messenger, whose name was Lorenzo, returned that day at all. "You are my guests now," he said with a genuine smile. "Please, act as such."

I thanked him—as did Ben—and followed Lela out the door into the too-bright sunlit garden. Her braids bounced as she moved happily across the neat stone path, and if I hadn't known better, I would have thought her no more than an ordinary girl. _He trusts us because she does_, I thought, and realized that befriending Lela was the best possible move: having her as enemy would undoubtedly be a dangerous mistake.

**Thank you for reading! I'd love some feedback, so if you could leave a review, that would be quite splendid. On a side note: if you pray, I hope that you do so for Japan. If not, I hope that we can all think of the catastrophe and try to find ways, even little ones, to help.**


	25. Chapter Twenty Five

**Hey, all—I hope you're having a great summer! Thanks to AlexaRg and Frogster for your reviews. (I could give excuses about how long it's been, but I'll just say my laptop completely died and I just got the documents back, I'm sorry, and leave it at that :) )**

**Chapter Twenty-Five:**

**Marielle**

While Ariana was in the meeting with the governor, I was caught between trying not to have an allergy attack and trying not to have a panic attack, both of which felt increasingly unpleasant and increasingly likely.

Nina, the woman who showed me to the suite of rooms that were supposed to be ours, was nice enough and had a baby, which made me hope that perhaps she wasn't going to kill me in the near future. Her sleeping daughter was doll-like in her silence; she stayed asleep and did not once whimper or cry, even as Nina moved from room to room. I was used to seeing the spoiled infants of courtiers and found myself impressed with both the child and her mother. I didn't think that I could quite handle the screaming of an unhappy infant on top of everything else.

Despite the occasional cat on the bed or the windowsill, the rooms themselves were lovely. Each one had a window, a trunk for storing clothes and other possessions, and—I uttered a prayer of thanks—a low, flat mattress piled with pillows and blankets in varying shades of orange and bright blue. Of the seven small chambers, four had windows facing the courtyard, and the other three, across the hall, looked out at the ocean. Each time I saw it again, it surprised me as if it was the first time. I kept expecting to see a strip of land on the edge of the horizon; something to indicate that the country I had come from was still there and hadn't just vanished.

I decided to assume that one of those windows was mine, and after Nina and the baby excused themselves, I claimed the room on the right. I slipped out of my borrowed boots and sat on the wide window ledge next to a fat tabby, watching the waves roll towards the shore and worrying. Every so often, I thought I saw a blonde head bob into view against the turquoise of the sea, but each time I was wrong; Tristan and the others weren't there. They weren't in the rooms with me or, to my knowledge, in the palace at all.

_Killed_, the wicked voice inside my head hissed. _Maimed. Shot with arrows, stabbed with pointy spears, thrown into a pit of snakes, set as bait for a horrible-tropical-island-beast with eighteen legs and twice as many heads. Dead and gone and here you sit_.

I tried to rationalize each bad thought away. _If they were going to kill us_, I argued with myself, chewing on my thumbnail in a way Bridgette had told me was Most Unattractive,_ they would have, right? They would have killed us at the gate_.

Which made sense for about ten seconds before that nasty little voice reminded me that Ariana, Ben and I had noble parents and could therefore be used as leverage, and the others didn't and couldn't.

But that didn't make sense either. Of course that didn't make sense. Lord Carlos was one of the governors of the Bright Isles—the leader of the governors, really. He answered to the queen of Irenta. Marquia and Irenta were allies. _Right?_ And for that matter, Lela had mentioned Marc, Marc with a human, Irentian mother. She had referenced him directly. Why would she do that if she wanted him dead?

Unless she really wasn't fifteen and was in fact a dangerous, soulless enchantress without a conscience and was biding her time before she—

_Stop it_.

I was too jumpy to sit still any longer. I clambered off the windowsill, upsetting the cat, and, without bothering to put my shoes back on, I hurried across the sandy floor to the hallway. Out of habit, my arm swung back to shut the door, and caught only air. I blinked. There was a door there, certainly. There had to be a door. Doors were important. Necessary, even. Slowly, I turned around.

There was no door, just an empty rectangular space where one should be. A quick glance up and down the hallway revealed that none of the guests' doorways actually contained doors. Or shades or even curtains, for that matter. Even worse was the realization that while every window was equipped at the top with netting—_please don't be for insects, please don't be for insects, please don't be for insects_—that netting was practically transparent as well.

I looked down at the faded dress I'd been wearing for the better part of the last month and a half. I didn't have anything to change into, but I would have to undress at some point.

This, I decided as I straightened my skirt and sneezed again, was definitely a problem. Add that to the list, somewhere between _possibly killed_ and _held for ransom_.

Ariana was in the audience chamber with the king for maybe an hour. During that hour, I counted the tiles in the floor in each room (7,686), the number of smiling mermaids depicted in the murals on the walls (57), and the number of doors in each chamber (0).

I was just beginning to count all the blue tiles when I heard voices, hushed and fast and _Marquian_, coming from outside. They were followed by footsteps, and several of them, slapping bare feet on the stone tiles. The inhabitants of the Bright Isles had all worn sandals. I leapt off of my bed and, sliding a little on the sandy floor, stumbled to the doorway.

I had never thought that I would ever be glad to see Maxwell. But at the sight of him, sandwiched between Marc and Kailyn—both of whom had one arm in the vice of a stone-faced guard—I threw my arms around him as Ariana might have, overcome with relief.

"I missed you?" he said uncertainly, smiling a little as I let go of him and thought better of trying to hug Tristan—or, for that matter, either of the elves, who wore twin expressions of, well, general malcontent and frustration and, some might say, pure, unadulterated poison.

The guards released Marc and Kailyn abruptly and turned, each motion stiff, to return to their posts… outside the main doorway and _in_side the garden. Well, fine. I could deal with that.

Kailyn spent half a second rubbing her wrist before she spat on the floor after her captor and hissed a suggestion about the pike he had over one shoulder and where he ought to stick it instead. "Talk," was all she said to me, and I imagined that her sharp tone and narrowed eyes could melt the skin off my face right there, never mind the sun. "What is going on right now?"

Marc appeared to agree with her. Tristan did not look any less grouchy than he had the last time I had seen him. Maxwell just looked lost.

"Well, um," I tried to begin, searching my brain for any more information, "Ariana is with—"

"Ari!" Tristan called suddenly, and as the others turned around and I stood on tiptoe to peer over Maxwell's head, he stepped forward into the courtyard, where Lela, Ariana and Ben had just exited the audience chamber. _Lela, Ariana, and Ben_. Alive!

Ari had looked up at her name, and in the next second she had rushed past Lela, smiling, happy, relieved—and as Tristan caught her up in an embrace right there the middle of the governor's garden, I knew that we were safe.

"It's all right," she said—or, at least, I think that's what she said; her face was buried in his shoulder, so it was a little hard to tell—"It's all right." She raised her head and, her eyes never leaving Tristan's face, addressed the group. "We're staying here."

I let out the breath I hadn't known I was holding, my arms uncrossing themselves, and closed my eyes. We were safe. We were _safe_. The sun was shining in a magical garden and for the first time in months, I didn't have to watch what I said or did or thought about; I didn't have to worry about being caught or found out. No more lying. No more secrets.

"We're not going to die?" poor Maxwell asked, gingerly touching my shoulder. For once, it didn't startle me, and I smiled before opening my eyes.

"No," Ariana said as she and Tristan disentangled themselves, her hand remaining tucked in his, "no one going to die. I'm sorry I was so short with you," she added after a moment to Kailyn, who inhaled sharply, as though her relationship with Ariana was absolutely the last thing on her mind. Ari continued. "We have sent a message to my parents—"

"The _king_," Maxwell interjected as though he still couldn't believe it. "And the queen."

"We have sent a message to my parents the king and queen," Ari agreed, unruffled by the interruption, "informing them of the current situation, which I am sure Tristan has explained to you." She squeezed his hand, making a point. "We will be under the governor's protection until…"

"Until the circumstances change and it is no longer necessary," said Lela, whom I had all-but forgotten about, chirping from next to Ben. "When the whole business is sorted out, I think you should be able to return home."

"'The whole business,'" Kailyn repeated. She looked suspicious, and took a step forward, her hands on her hips. "You mean, until all the politics are sorted out?" She spat out _politics_ like it had a bad taste.

"I haven't met you yet," Lela exclaimed. She actually leapt forward, enthusiasm emanating from every pore. "I am Lela, daughter of the governor Lord Carlos and Lady Rosaura. What is your name?"

"Kailyn de Carmen," Marc said to cover Kailyn's blank stare, stepping up to meet Lela as the murderous expression dropped off his face. "I'm Marco," he said now with his best smile, the white-toothed, charming, aren't-I-adorable-and-friendly-and-not-dangerous-in-the-least smile. It that had induced gasps, stares, and general awe from most of the girls and women we had met over the last few weeks (myself and Ari included, it must be admitted). So I really couldn't blame Lela when, on cue, she—surprise—giggled again. "You know, our mothers had the same name," Marc continued. He met her eyes, that same smile present. "Small world, isn't it?"

"He's married," Kailyn said flatly before Lela could respond, garnering an indignant, un-charming splutter from her counterpart and a few surprised faces from the rest of us. It didn't appear to deter her; she had Lela's attention back. "When," she said, "are we going to be able to go home?"

"Oh," said the governor's daughter. A strand of brown hair whipped out of her braids, tugged by the wind, and as she tucked it behind her ear, she glanced at Ariana. "Well, actually… he's in the process of, um… circumstances being what they are—"

"My friend here isn't the best with people," Marc interrupted. He flashed another smile, but this one was thin. "First of all, I am _not_ married, and second—we want to know how long the, ah, politics will take."

At this, Lela looked faintly relieved, probably because it didn't require an exact answer. "I believe," she said as Kailyn hissed another impolite suggestion, this one regarding Marc, "that the negotiations will take some time."

"How long do they usually last?" Maxwell asked, his voice cracking. Next to him, Marc knocked Kailyn with his elbow. She slammed her own into his ribs.

"I don't know," Lela said after a pause, as though greatly struck by the idea.

The non-political crowd exchanged looks.

"I don't think you understand," said Marc with a nervous laugh, rubbing his side. "We…" He indicated himself, Maxwell and Kailyn. "We aren't supposed to be here. This was a mistake. Can't we just go back?"

Lela hesitated. "No," she said finally. Her eyes darted from Marc to Kailyn and back again, and she swallowed. I felt my stomach drop. "I'm sorry, but it's too much of a… of a…"

"Danger," I suggested to fill the gap, and she pointed at me, nodding emphatically.

"Yes, that's it. A danger. My father won't allow it." She looked at each person, earnest and anxious at the same time, and bit her lip. "I am sorry. But we cannot allow you to leave until everything is sorted."

There was a silence. Then Marc turned to Kailyn for the first time all morning, and, really looking at her, spoke. "So, basically," he said in Elfin, "we're—"

And here he used a rather graphic expression that I had never heard before and that I couldn't help flinching over. I didn't mean to, I really didn't. It was just a little twitch, a nearly-silent gasp, but Kailyn caught it, and her eyes widened as the light came on behind her eyes, and I realized just then that the punishment for lying to her about speaking their language, as well as everything else, might just be evisceration by dulled throwing knives.

Slowly, she exchanged a long look with her counterpart. Marc hadn't reacted, but after a moment his eyebrows shot up and then came straight back down in an expression that was somehow resigned and incredulous at the same time.

"She speaks Elfin," he said, "doesn't she."

For one awful, shameful moment, they just looked at me. Then, even as I opened my mouth to apologize or explain or something, Marc and Kailyn started shouting at each other. Each one began at the same time and in a mixture of both languages, so it was impossible to tell exactly what they were saying. There were a lot of "you"s thrown into the argument, except for the occasional use of the word brujeta, which, although I'd never heard it, probably meant "little-witch-girl" and more-than-probably referred to me.

Lela watched all of this with great amusement, giggling from time to time as she followed the row from person to person.

"Well," said Maxwell dismally as he stepped around them, footsteps cautious, and into my room, "at least we're together." Like mine had, his hand went back to find something that wasn't there.

"There are no doors," I informed him, not caring that Lela was standing right there. "None."

He appeared to consider this for a moment. Behind him, Tristan whispered something to Ariana that made her laugh, leaning against him. Kailyn and Marc's accents, more pronounced in their anger, by now made it impossible to decipher anything at all of the argument. Ben picked up one of the cats buzzing around his ankles. He didn't look up, and I felt the exhaustion from the day hit me all at once, as if a rope had fallen around my neck and was pulling me down into the tiled floor.

"Can I still sleep?" Maxwell asked with a longing look at the bed through that first doorway.

"I would," I said, realizing that if I didn't claim my room right then, I would lose it. "And I will see you in an hour."

And I did sleep—for more than just an hour. I was more tired than I had realized, I supposed, for by the time I woke up, the sun was setting, a pile of turquoise cloth sat next to the washbasin in the corner, and Kailyn and Marc were sitting outside in the garden, playing with the cats and ignoring each other.

As it wasn't the first time this had happened since I had met them, I edged forward, pleased with the beauty of the garden in the sunset. All the leaves were tinged with gold, and the flowers seemed even more fragile. Light from the sinking sun filtered across the water of the fountain, giving it a strange and beautiful glow. It was lovely here, I thought; and the best part was that we were nearly home. Everything felt peaceful.

Marc's cat, a tan, shorthaired one, suddenly hissed and leapt away and into the bushes, leaving him with eight pinpricks of blood across his arms. He brushed a finger against the marks and swore viciously, another Elfin phrase that I didn't understand but that apparently Kailyn did.

"You sicken me."

"I hate you," Marc snapped back automatically.

"You _hate_ me? Are you five years old?"

"Um," I said before I thought better of it, my voice hoarse from the nap, and Kailyn jumped. She appeared to remember that, well, it was partly my fault she was here and it was entirely my fault that she had spoken repeatedly to Marc in Elfin without a thought about it, and she scowled. Then she shot Marc a nastier look when he started to speak and turned back to me. It was clear that I was the lesser of two evils, and I took a shaky breath before attempting what I hoped was a harmless smile.

"Hello," she said benevolently, almost sweetly, a smile alighting on her face. The contrast was incredible, and deliberate, and Marc snorted. "The evening meal will be served in just a few moments. Lela will come and get us when it's ready."

"Oh," I said. Marc sat with his face tipped up toward the sky, ignoring me. "Well."

There was an uncomfortable silence. I took a few tentative steps over to the fountain. The mermaid that was the spout reached her hands to the sky, spewing water out of her fingertips.

"I'm six, thank you," said Marc from the ground, in a voice as cold as a blade. I dipped my fingers in the water and tried to ignore them.

"You're acting like a child."

"I thought I _was_ a child. And anyway," his voice went up about an octave, mocking her tone, "_you sicken me_, really?"

I could feel the happiness at the relief of finally being safe (and taking a nap in a clean bed) dimming, and for a moment I wished for Alyson, or Tristan, or someone to tell them they were both acting like children. As no one was there and to them I was probably in need of a few nasty phrases myself, I decided to go back to my chamber, dripping water from my hands and sneezing from all those stupid cats.

I wished that I could shut their voices out with a door or even a curtain. Immature? They both were, at least right now. I did not want more time spent looking at the ocean to be spoiled by the arguing voices, and so I tried to ignore Marc, who was hissing in Elfin now, and looked around the room to find something useful to do. There was now a pitcher sitting on top of the trunk, covered with a cloth and filled, when I looked, with cool water. If supper was to start soon, I might as well start looking presentable.

It turned out that the pile of blue cloth next to the basin was not towels, as I had thought at first, but was actually a tunic and divided skirt like Lela's. I took a long look out at the garden, where Marc and Kailyn were now standing close together, faces serious in what appeared to be a rational discussion. I didn't think they would notice if I jumped up and down and started screaming. At every doorway, however, I also saw the guards. Two alone flanked our entrance to the garden. It was our only entrance, really, unless you wanted to go out the window. How was I supposed to dress if there was nowhere—_oh!_

I had forgotten about Ariana entirely, and felt a twinge of guilt. Of course; I was a lady-in-waiting again, and she would need my help.

Glancing at the guards, who stared out at the fountain, I shuffled out of my chamber and into the hallway. It wasn't difficult to tell which chamber was which; Kailyn's nightgown had been balled up and thrown into a corner of her empty room, and that only left one. Ari had chosen the last on the hallway, partially due to her proximity to Tristan. I could see him on his cushion, curled up and asleep on top of his blanket, through his doorway.

I knocked once on the doorframe and waited, sure that she was still asleep; but I was surprised to hear her voice, clear and surprisingly calm, from inside.

"Yes?" she asked, and I stepped inside, smiling.

"Congratulations," I said, pausing to add, "Princess." Ari laughed, rising from her cushion.

"We're nearly there," she said, but she was smiling. Her tunic and divided skirt were inexplicably bright green, and she, I noticed suddenly, had somehow put them on without a door.

"How did you—" I began, but stopped. If she had figured it out, so could I, and anyway that wasn't the reason for my visit. "I came to see if you needed any assistance preparing for supper," I explained.

Ari shook her head slowly. "No," she said, her face thoughtful as she turned, finding her reflection in the square mirror on her wall. "I think that I'll… I'll be all right."

She stood there for a moment more, turning her head back and forth, and then laughed again, but quietly, as if at herself. She looked at me over her shoulder. "I suppose we'll be home soon."

"I hope so," I said, and, now that there was no threat of immediate danger following us like a shadow, I felt my heart sink just a little, as though I had told an untruth and hadn't known it until the words left my mouth.

"And then it will all be over."

I wasn't sure I knew what to say to that. "I suppose," I answered after a moment, leaning against the doorframe. "Are you relieved, or…?"

"Of course I'm relieved," Ariana said quickly. She tucked her hair behind her ears. It had grown past her shoulders by now, and it was hard to remember the days when it had hung loose practically to her knees, though that had only been a few weeks before. "But…" she trailed off, and for a moment looked past me. I knew what she was thinking, and waited until she had shaken her head and sat down, fidgeting with her tunic.

"Do you know—" I stopped myself, trying to think of a better way to phrase my question. "What will happen to Tristan? After?"

Ari sighed and pressed her fingertips to her temples, forcing her gaze away from the boy who slept three feet away, who didn't know that the girl he loved was already starting to become the person she had been before she met him.

"I don't know," she said, and looked up at me, laughing a little. "I mean, I can hardly be expected to think hard about something like that when my country is in danger." She paused, as though about to continue, before changing her mind. "You ought to dress for supper."

"There are _no doors!_" I cried. "Just tell me how, please, am I supposed to dress if there are no—"

Ariana pointed wordlessly to the wall, upon which a solid white screen lay folded.

"Ah," I said, and blushed to the roots of my hair. Goodness, was that really it? I had mistaken the screen for some sort of odd wall decoration, but Ariana had actually used her mind and unfolded it. "Well," I muttered, "everyone still knows what you're doing. It isn't the same as a door."

"I expect it's because they don't quite trust us," she said thoughtfully. My mouth opened in protest of its own accord. "No, they don't," she said, noticing my expression, "not really. I can't blame them. You know Father always hires extra guards to stay outside the rooms of royal guests. It's just as much for our benefit as theirs. Here, the governor can know what we're doing at any moment."

"It's not dignified!"

"You spent the last month of your life sleeping in forests on the ground and pretending to tell fortunes like a gypsy, all the time wearing a costume designed for a woman twice your size, and you're concerned about being undignified?"

I opened my mouth to answer that but shut it almost immediately, heat rising to my cheeks.

"Kailyn arrived today in a nightgown, I think Maxwell might never recover from the damaging experience of it all, and I don't think Marc has a clear idea what's going on yet. I think _undignified_ is about the size of it." Ariana sat back down on her cushion, grinning. "I rather like that. It's not a dignified situation, so why should we be?"

She kept me laughing for the next few minutes, until finally Kailyn and Marc stalked into the hallway and I decided to take my laughter back to my chamber. Maxwell was just waking up as I passed his chamber, and, with his hair sticking up and shirt twisted the wrong way, gave me a sleepy wave. I waved back, turning away from Kailyn as she entered her room, and glanced into Ben's, just to see what he was doing. He was standing in the center of his chamber, holding one of the broken tiles together. As I walked by, he mended it; then, without warning, dropped it, broke it, and ran a hand over it again. Magic. When he saw me I smiled, and then, as if startled, he smiled back.

The expression gave me a flurry of different feelings, all tumbling around at the same time inside my chest and making it difficult to decide which one was dominant. After a moment's hesitation, I settled on anxious and crossed back into my room with quick steps, trying not to trip over the cat and wishing that the sudden rush of confusion would leave as quickly as it had come.

The ocean was still unending, and unlike anything I had ever seen, and as I struggled to put up the screen I watched the waves roll in and out, scraping the shore. And then it happened. I felt the same dimness swirl around me, and I put a hand to my head as the vision came; lights? A figure stood, silhouetted against water, no, the mermaid fountain, which glowed with magical—light? Liquid light, not water? But just as quickly as it had come, it was gone, and I stood for a moment, breathing heavily, the screen tight in my grip. Well.

I was glad to have a peaceful vision for a while; it could have been Marc, or Ben, or Tristan or even Maxwell standing there. For once, there had been no knives or swords or even anything boring, like my brother riding a horse or my father reading a book. I would ask Lela what she had seen after supper. I had a feeling that she would be a lot more reliable than I was.

With that in mind, I took the bright blue clothes in hand and stepped behind my screen, the waves rushing behind me and the thoughts of food and more sleep peaceful in my mind.

**Thanks for reading! **


	26. Chapter Twenty Six

**Hi! I hope you enjoy this chapter :) Good luck with the new school year for everyone in school or college. Enjoy!**

**Chapter Twenty-Six**

**Kailyn**

Forget truth, or lies, or whatever the hell I said last time. This is my part of the story, and as I remember it, I was angrier right now than I had ever been.

It shouldn't have been a big deal, not really. I just happened to be stuck, _indefinitely_, in the middle of some creepy magical garden, roasting like a stuck pig on an island whose real name I could barely pronounce, and right then I couldn't even think of escape—I had to understand how we had gotten there in the first place. Ariana, the doe-eyed flirt, a princess? Scratch that. _The _princess? Of course she was. And spastic, jumpy Marielle—not only was she a noblewoman, but she was also apparently fluent in Elfin and about fifty-eight other languages, which she proved easily over the course of the first evening we spent on that godforsaken island. The whole thing was like one of those stupid stories mothers told their children so they would not speak to strangers, would grow up to be brave, and would eventually become productive members of society. They weren't supposed to be _real_.

She had lied to me, I kept thinking that first night as Lela led us out of the garden and through one of the longest corridors I had ever seen. Tristan and Ariana had lied to us, too, but Marielle… she spoke _Elfin_, God, why was I so stupid? There were whole conversations I should never have had with Marc, things I shouldn't have talked about with him in front of her. Things like my parents, like his mother, things like—ay, what was she thinking _n_ow_?_ She didn't look as though there was anything wrong, staring around at the sandy walls that hid the ocean from us and blinking happily at the vaulted ceilings. She turned and spoke in a different tongue I didn't recognize to what's-his-name, the boy I had mistaken for an errant nobleman's son at the tavern back in the Walled City. Here, in this place with the whispering breeze and waves lapping against the sand, it seemed like I was years away from tucking Bethanne into bed.

We stopped before a pair of double doors flanked by more orange-clad guards, and I stepped too close to Marc by mistake, knocking his elbow with mine. This time it really was an accident, but he glared at me anyway. I stepped back, crossing my arms. _Honestly_. All right, so we shouldn't have started the fight over Marielle and her stupid secret languages, but I had felt this brewing, hot words cooking slowly in the tension that had hovered over us both since we'd last really talked. I could be just as angry as I wanted to; I knew that this had been coming. I was glad for it. If nothing else, it meant that honesty was once again the best policy.

In front of me, Marielle was gazing with delight at the doors, both of which were covered in some ancient text that, while the letters meant nothing to me, curled over the wood. I was so caught up in scanning the strange letters, trying to see what she did, that it took me a moment to realize that the doors did not have handles. At Lela's chirpy command, they swung open of their own accord to reveal a pavilion, and I smiled in spite of everything. At home, in Irenta, magic was commonplace, and studying the craft was an honor. It was nice to see that the leaders of the colonies felt the same way.

Two footmen stood at the head of a long, low table in the center. The table had been laid out for twelve, and rather than chairs, the governor preferred to use cushions—were they for lounging, or sitting? I couldn't tell, just imitated Lela as she slid into her seat. Leaning heavily on one hip and trying to keep balance with my arm, I noticed Marielle and Ariana struggling and reflected that perhaps the candles that lined the center of the table were probably not the best idea.

Once I had gotten my bearings, I glanced around at the space, trying to take in anything important. There were no walls; past the brightly tiled floor, the red roofs of the rooms of the palace layered down to the ground like the toy blocks Bethanne had lugged from village to village. The empty spaces between the four broad pillars were covered with thin white nettings that blew in the sea breeze. No matter if I looked west, north, or east, white waves crested and fell into a rapidly darkening ocean. But—_there_. To my left, in the west, there it was: the harbor. Three wide docks lined with boats stretched several feet into the water, but what was important to me was the ship planted in the water several feet offshore. It was enormous, the masts large even from where I stood, and people small as insects scurried back and forth, hauling cargo. _Perfect_.

A birdcall startled me, and I looked around for the source of the noise. A golden birdcage hung, suspended by a glittering chain from the vaulted ceiling. Inside were two yellow and blue birds squawked and flapped their bright wings around although they could go nowhere. They were louder than the flock of chickens I'd once tended for an innkeeper, and their individual cries were twice as piercing.

I was debating the merits of silencing the birds when Lela suddenly sprang up, and Ariana and Marielle followed suit. In a moment everyone was on their feet, just in time for the governor to enter.

I hadn't wanted to hear anything Ariana had to say, so I missed her description to Tristan of the monarch, but he didn't look any different from the noblemen I saw striding through the crowds whenever we performed in cities. He was shorter than Marc but taller than me, and the way his fingers stroked the rings on his hands indicated, at least to me, that for the moment his mind was entirely on what he owned and how to keep it. For half a second, I wanted to lean over and say as much to Marc, to see if he had sized the governor up the same way, but then I remembered.

The governor did not speak until he had been seated, and even then, it was just a greeting. I was about to drop to my cushion when I remembered Ariana, who went first, and then Marielle, then tavern boy and finally the rest of us. Humans. In the elf courts, it was always too much trouble to remember positions besides the queen. Then again, I supposed we really didn't have nobility anymore. There were the elders and the heads of each village, but not much else. Once, Litza said, there was a court along with the elf queen, but most of them had been killed in the war, or they had fled.

It didn't matter anymore, I realized as a servant in orange—why _orange,_ of all colors?—brought out trays bearing glass plates and placed them in front of us. I didn't recognize the tan sauce, but I knew, at least, that the meat was fish. When no one was looking, I tasted the sauce with a finger. Spicy, just enough to be bitter, and made from a strange cheese. I managed to choke down half of it, helped by a glass of wine. Any other night I might have enjoyed that, but tonight was different. The ship meant a way out, and if I wanted to find a path to the ship, I would need to keep my head.

The meal did not last long. The governor seemed to have already gathered all the information from Ariana that he could, and since he didn't talk, neither did us visitors. I spent most of the time watching Lela flirt with every non-relative male at the table. What she was doing was obvious, but then she was only fourteen years old. "Please," she said to Tristan once, "I would love for you to tell me about your home."

"I live with my sisters and my parents," Tristan said flatly without looking up. "My lady," he added after a moment, the words sounding strange coming from him. Ariana smiled into her second-course plate of bright fruit. Undeterred, Lela turned her attentions over to the tavern boy, who by now, I had been reminded, was Ben.

"Those are so interesting," she exclaimed, turning to one side to touch the tattoos on his wrist. I wondered if the governor noticed his daughter's behavior, or if he cared. Probably he didn't. "These mean—you are a mage. Right?"

"Yes," Ben admitted, the arm-touching moment whistling faintly as it flew over his head. He pulled his arm slightly out of her reach. "My father is a lord and a mage, see?" He pointed to two of the symbols on his wrist, dark green splotches. I stretched out my hands, suddenly glad that they were now bare.

"You must have a splendid sorcerium," Lela said. I glanced sideways at Marc, wondering if he had noticed that my tattoos were gone. He had noticed the hair. It wasn't exactly easy to hide. Of course it didn't matter and I didn't care, but did he know why I'd gotten the ink off my skin? He caught me looking at him, gave me a strange look, and turned out to face the ocean.

"I beg your pardon?" Ariana asked as Marielle looked up. I bit my tongue, even though I was dying to comment, and wished that I wanted to kill Marc less. It wasn't a difficult word to understand. Scholars formed schools. Sorcerers worked in sorceriums. It really was that simple. Lela explained in politer terms while Marielle listened, fascinated with the descriptions of spellbooks and scrying crystals and shimmering potions. If what Tristan had said was true, then she hadn't known what she was for more than a few weeks. Most people would be absolutely petrified, but she seemed happy as a bird about the whole thing. I couldn't decide if this showed intelligence or terrifying stupidity, but then, that was Marielle. Talking obliviously to strange men in taverns one moment, spitting out six languages and spouting off irrelevant bits of history the next.

She wanted to see the sorcerium; it was obvious. And Lela was only too happy to take her. After the meal had finished and servants collected the empty plates, the governor dismissed us and his daughter announced a short trip to the sorcerium. "You may use it tomorrow," she promised Tristan, Marielle and Ben. "I'm sure you'll love it."

Lela laughed all the way through her father's exit through those doors, about what I wasn't sure. The sound was really starting to grate on my ears. Ariana and the others followed her, but I pretended to drop something and crouched for a moment, watching as they continued down the hall. The guards had gone after the governor, and so that left me alone in the pavilion as the door closed behind them.

_Finally_. I stood and stretched, liking, against my better judgment, the way the divided skirt felt on my skin. Interesting. I reached down and grasped my ankle, pulling my leg over my head, and the material moved with me. This could open up a world of opportunity for dance. When I got home, I'd have to take some of these with me.

Right. Home. If I wanted to get there, I'd have to act quickly, before they left the sorcerium and realized that I wasn't back in our quarters. Glancing to the west, I couldn't see the flag of the ship that had landed, but if I had to guess, I'd put my money on Irenta. As the owner of the Bright Isles, it only made sense for them to trade freely. It could take a week or so for them to reload or pick up more sailors, and a month or more to return, but how much time were we to spend here? I didn't like the feel of being transported by magic. A ship, at least, was a safer bet than the chance of getting, say, added into a transportation spell when the caster didn't mean to do it.

I looked down out over the edge of the pavilion, squinting into the darkness to see the buildings that had grown up and around the palace. I could see the flat roofs, but I had no idea how far a drop I was to expect. For a moment I saw, thinking, and then I remembered the flowers on the table. I grabbed a handful and selected a pink blossom I was unfamiliar with, and dropped it over the edge.

I watched it fall for about twenty feet on the first one; a bad jump, one I'd made before but didn't want to chance a second time. The second fell way too far for me to even gauge. The third was nearly forty feet. I made my way around the first edge of the pavilion like that until finally, beside one of the pillars, the flower fell about eight feet and stopped.

No one was behind me or in the pavilion at all. It was easy to lift the mosquito netting, swing my legs over the side, and drop into a crouch. The impact jarred my legs, but just enough to inform me that I was out of practice. It had been a long time since I had last jumped out of a tree. I swiped the flower from the floor and paused, my eyes finding the pattern of roofs in the darkness. Then I threw the blossom again, watching as it landed in the right spot, and jumped. Following my bizarre staircase, I worked my way down the blocks that made up the palace until finally the only thing beneath me was the street. The streets I had seen while the guards pulled us inside had been made of dirt; hopefully this was the same, or I was in trouble. I hadn't considered it.

I hit the ground—dirt, _thank you_—without making too much noise and looked up towards the sky. If I was looking for the ship, then I would have to go west, to wear the sun had set. It did not help that all of the sandy white buildings looked the same, but I found the lightest place in the sky and turned towards that direction.

With the task of getting to the street and the distraction of finding the direction of the ship out of my head, my thoughts turned immediately back to Marc. _Ay, no,_ I wouldn't think of him now, not when I had something to do and I could help it. But if I was going to keep my sanity in this place, I might need him. That was an unpleasant thought, about as welcome as the memories of that night the week before when it all started. I didn't want to need anybody. I wanted to be on my own, it was better. And as for everything else, I wanted to blame Santiago. If I hadn't seen him with Chandra, he never would have had to tell me he was keeping her as a bed warmer. If he hadn't told me about her, I wouldn't have gone to the tavern. If I hadn't gone to the tavern, Marc wouldn't have had to come and find me. And if he hadn't found me, nothing would ever have happened.

_Come _on_, Kailyn_. Thinking about it was pointless. I realized that I had been standing still right there in the center of a strange city, vulnerable to any onlookers, and shook myself. I kept myself from asking what was the matter with me; I knew the answer to that. The only thing I ought to be concentrating on right then, it seemed, was finding the ship. Once I knew what sort of ship it was, then I might be able to figure out a way to get home. A merchant ship with little cargo to return would be best. The captain might not be opposed to taking me with him as a passenger. It wasn't unheard-of. If that wasn't the case, I'd find a way around it somehow.

The streets were wide, filled with stalls selling everything from figs to jewelry. They also were mainly empty, possibly because of the bugs. I had swatted at least ten by the third narrow alleyway I passed, uncomfortably aware of the watching people in the windows and doorways of the sandstone buildings and peddling their wares. No matter how quiet I tried to be, one glance at me must show that I was a stranger. The bright clothes were just another way of marking us as visitors at the palace. The few city dwellers I happened to spot were wearing simple, faded colors, and I felt as though I glowed like a flame that got brighter with every step. As I probably wasn't supposed to leave the palace without causing some kind of international problem, this wasn't good. In Marquia, staring mostly was a good thing, for Helen, anyway. Marc had hated it.

Of course Marc would go back to being himself right afterwards. The boy sitting outside the inn the night before, the one I didn't deserve—he was already gone. It had taken him a little more than a week, just about the same mourning period he had for any girl whose favor he captured, held, and lost. Or got bored with, or just left when Helen's contract sent us to another village or town. It had been eight days. I knew. I had counted. Anyway, by the time I got back tonight, even, he would probably be fine. Still angry with me for shouting at him, sure, but fine. He probably would have forgotten all about the lovething.

Men, I had learned, were like that. They thought they liked you because you could dance or were an elf or happened to be able to pull your leg up beside your head, and most of them believed they really did like you. Some even wanted to get to know you. I had thought that Marc was different, at least with me. He had always stopped me from going too far before. He had spoken to Helen for me, kept me from doing anything that I would truly regret on bad nights. He cautioned against climbing up too high in the trees during our games when we were children. I had discovered too late that the only person Marc didn't stop me from taking things too far with was himself.

Where was my head tonight? I stopped in the middle of an intersection of two roads, aware of the woman standing just a few feet away from me, her son tugging at her hand. They stood outside a stall with a sign in a language I couldn't read, but I was familiar enough with the contents of an apothecary's shop to recognize it. Dried herbs hung from every possible free surface. Some I knew, but most of them were different than the plants that grew in Irenta. There were yellow flowers with purple centers, brown weeds that curled like ribbons, and even bags of seeds with strange labels. The ancient woman tending the stall noticed me and smiled, her eyes nearly disappearing in the folds of her wrinkles. I looked away. I'd been to an apothecary in the Walled City and I did not wish to repeat the experience.

"No," I said without thinking about whether or not she could understand me, more to myself than anyone else. "I'm fine."

"Who are you talking to?"

I spun around, heart beating so fast I thought for a moment I might just die right there. "What are you doing?" I said, the words coming too quickly to make too much sense. "How—how did you get out?"

"I went back to quarters and jumped out the window," said Marco de Rosaura, as though it was obvious. He stood in front of the jewelry stall, his mouth still set in a hard line. My stomach turned over, and I took quick steps back towards him, just in case he saw the apothecary and asked the wrong questions. "And I'm looking for a way out."

"Or looking for a fight," I said, perhaps too harshly. When Marc was angry, he picked fights that it was impossible to win. If he felt anything like I did, then I might have to enlist Tristan's help in putting him back together.

"We can't stay here forever," Marc said with a glare. He glanced in the direction of the ship. "And I'd rather go now. I'd say I was waiting on your answer, but it doesn't look like that's necessary, does it?"

"Are you going to be like this the whole journey back?" I asked after a pause, struck by the venom in his voice. "Because if you are, then you can find your own way home."

"You started it," Marc said matter-of-factly.

"I didn't see you objecting—"

"Hey, I meant just now, got it? I'm sorry." He sighed, drumming his fingers on one leg absentmindedly. Then, abruptly, he brightened. I bit the inside of my cheek when he grinned. "I'm calling a truce," Marc announced, loudly, so that any Elfin-speaking natives of the Bright Isles would understand as well. "As long as we're in the islands. Any mentions to anything that happened in the Walled City ends the truce, and we can go back to being grownups. But we have to get out of here before the politics smother us both, and I don't need all this—" He gestured at the space between us, erratically, and I couldn't help smiling, just a bit "—right now, I need you when you were fifteen. Can we both just be fifteen?"

"A truce," I repeated. I turned the word over in my mind. I didn't know if I could act like everything was fine, nothing had happened and it was all rainbows and butterflies between us, best friends from now until forever. But the alternative was much worse. "Sounds fine."

"Good," Marc said, and for a moment we just stood there. Where did we go from here?

"Well," I said after a second, "I've got a question. If we're fifteen, are you going to keep telling people you were trained by an assassin? Because that's not true, and I don't know how well it works as a cover story—"

Marc laughed, the sound bright and false. I could tell it wasn't real, but I didn't say so. It didn't seem to be the best way to start off a truce. Especially not when he was the only person in the world that I could trust.

**Thanks for your time! **


End file.
